Updates on the Fight for Quality Public Education in Brevard County, FL
0:00 Thank you.
5:00 Good afternoon.
5:08 The April 8th, 2025 Board Work Session and Rural Development and
5:13 First Public Hearing is now in order.
5:15 Thank you.
5:57 Yes, sir.
5:58 On today’s agenda, we have the rule development proposed policy
6:00 revisions, including the OLA volume
6:02 25, 25, 25, 25, number 2, recommended updates.
6:03 Public hearing is now open to the public comments.
6:04 We will, in accordance with Florida law, accept the speakers on
6:04 the following policies.
6:05 Sir.
6:06 Policy 0164.
6:07 0164.
6:11 We will hear a presentation from our team regarding the long-term
6:11 strategic facilities plan update.
6:12 Great.
6:13 First on today’s agenda, we have the rule of development.
6:14 Opposed policy revisions, including the OLA volume 25, number 2,
6:16 recommended updates.
6:18 Public hearing is now open to the public comments.
6:19 We will, in accordance with Florida law, accept the speakers on
6:26 the following policies.
6:30 Sir.
6:31 Policy 0164.
6:32 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
6:42 Policy 0165.
6:47 Meetings.
6:48 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
6:56 Policy 0165-2.
6:59 Regular meetings.
7:00 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:08 Policy 0165-3.
7:11 Special and emergency meetings.
7:13 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:18 Policy 0166.
7:20 Exempt meetings.
7:22 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:27 Policy 02120.
7:29 School improvement.
7:30 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:34 Policy 02125.
7:35 School advisory councils for school improvement and
7:38 accountability.
7:40 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:44 Policy 02421.
7:45 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:46 Policy 02421.
7:47 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:49 Policy 02421.
7:50 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:51 Policy 02421.
7:52 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:53 Policy 02421.
7:54 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:55 Policy 02421.
7:56 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:57 Policy 02421.
7:58 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
7:59 Policy 02421.
8:00 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:01 Policy 02421.
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8:05 Policy 02421.
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8:08 Policy 02421.
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8:11 Policy 02421.
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8:15 Policy 02421.
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8:19 Policy 02423.
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8:23 Policy 02425.
8:24 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:26 Policy 02425.
8:27 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:29 Policy 02425.
8:30 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:31 Policy 02425.
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8:33 Policy 02425.
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8:36 Policy 02425.
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8:38 Policy 02425.
8:39 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:41 Policy 02425.
8:42 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:43 Policy 02425.
8:44 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:45 Policy 02425.
8:46 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:47 Policy 02425.
8:48 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:49 Policy 02425.
8:50 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:52 Policy 02425.
8:53 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:54 Policy 02425.
8:55 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
8:57 Policy 02425.
8:58 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
9:00 Policy 02425.
9:01 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
9:03 Policy 02425.
9:04 Policy 5410-01, is there anyone that would like to speak
9:08 to this item?
9:09 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
9:12 Policy 5463, is there anyone that would like to speak
9:15 to this item?
9:16 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
9:19 Policy 5465, is there anyone that would like to speak
9:21 to this item?
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9:25 Policy 5780, is there anyone that would like to speak
9:28 to this item?
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9:32 Policy 8405, is there anyone that would like to speak
9:37 to this item?
9:37 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
9:40 Policy 8500, is there anyone that would like to speak
9:42 to this item?
9:43 Is there anyone that would like to speak to this item?
9:47 There being none, okay.
9:49 Last on the agenda, we have a long-term strategic facilities
9:52 plan update by, you want to take it over?
9:55 - Good afternoon everyone, I’m Sue Han and I’m the Assistant
10:00 Superintendent for Facilities Services.
10:02 And I’m really pleased to be here today to kind of give you a
10:05 mid-project status report on the long-term strategic facilities
10:10 plan.
10:10 We kind of started this endeavor back last fall and started
10:15 looking at our facilities, both condition as well as
10:19 enrollment over the capacity of each school and how we can
10:23 become
10:24 more efficient, more effective.
10:25 We have many aging buildings.
10:27 We’ve invested a lot of resources in our aging buildings and
10:31 that maybe is not a sustainable
10:33 model going forward.
10:34 So we need to look at our long-term operating costs, our long-term
10:37 capital costs, and just
10:38 trying to look at other things that we can do within our
10:40 district from a facilities perspective
10:43 to be better.
10:44 And so we launched a long-term strategic facilities planning
10:49 project in the fall and hired WXY consultants
10:54 out of New York as well as Sara Lee Morrissey, who is a sub-consultant
10:58 to them.
10:58 She is more or less my counterpart in Volusia for many years, so
11:03 she’s very familiar with Florida
11:05 facilities and a neighbor to our north, so we’ve got some really
11:09 good expertise looking
11:10 at this from an outsider’s point of view and looking at our data,
11:14 as well as someone who’s
11:16 got some really good experience in the Florida facilities world.
11:19 So I feel like we’ve got a really good team, including our own
11:22 folks, Mr. Lindeman and Ms.
11:24 Black on our team, who’ve done really good work that I think you
11:27 see on an annual basis with
11:28 our student accommodation plan and Dave’s work I think you see
11:31 on every agenda with our project
11:34 work.
11:35 So we started the work in the fall and did a baseline conditions
11:40 report out to the board
11:42 in December of 2024, and that kind of gave you all the data.
11:47 This is what we found.
11:49 We have done some community engagement, a little bit of surveying,
11:53 and they will report on that
11:55 today to give you some things that we’re hearing from the
11:57 community.
11:58 And along those lines, I did attend a community meeting last
12:01 night that was a group effort.
12:03 A group effort between folks in Rockledge and Cocoa in support
12:07 of the McNair Magnet Middle
12:09 School.
12:10 And heard some great things from community members and some
12:12 great ideas for how they can work
12:14 on addressing their low enrollment issue that is not an uncommon
12:18 issue in our district.
12:19 So really had a good conversation with the community and believe
12:22 that we’re going to be having more
12:24 conversations with the community as we go forward.
12:26 So I think there’s a lot of different options that we can look
12:28 at.
12:29 So with that, I’m going to jump into the presentation.
12:32 And I know you guys are very used to me going rapidly through
12:36 stuff.
12:37 In this particular case, I’m probably going to talk a little bit
12:39 slower and a little bit
12:40 more.
12:41 So bear with us.
12:42 We’ve got a lot of information to portray for you this afternoon.
12:48 So first and foremost, I want to really emphasize that this is a
12:51 process.
12:52 We’re in a study phase.
12:54 We’re not ready to actually implement anything.
12:58 But we want to get the board’s perspective on some of the
13:00 broader-based concepts that we’ve
13:02 been evaluating over the past few months.
13:05 So we’re not suggesting any changes for 25-26.
13:08 And in fact, at this point, we’re not suggesting any changes at
13:11 all.
13:11 We really would like to hear from the board on the ranges of
13:15 options that we’ve put together
13:16 for you based on the data.
13:18 And as I told the community last night, we’re facilities people.
13:21 So we deal with buildings and enrollment and capacity and
13:25 capital costs and things like
13:27 that.
13:28 But there’s also the people element that goes with this.
13:30 And so it’s really important that whatever solutions that we
13:34 want to look at from a priority
13:35 perspective, that we also engage the community, engage the
13:39 people that are affected by these
13:41 decisions, engage the educational side of the house.
13:44 That’s not my expertise.
13:45 That’s not our expertise.
13:47 So when we talk about things like grade configuration changes,
13:51 that might work great on paper.
13:52 It may not work at all in the school environment.
13:55 So we really have a lot more work to do before we launch
13:58 anything very specific.
13:58 I really want to just talk in concept basis today based on the
14:04 data that we found.
14:07 So first, this is a slide that kind of shows the timeline of
14:10 where we are relative to the
14:12 sales surtax.
14:13 So we had the initial sales tax in 2014 that in both cases, 2014
14:18 and 2020, focused on facility
14:21 renewal, educational technology, and security.
14:23 We’ve made some great investments.
14:25 We have some great projects going on.
14:27 And we are today building a potential surtax renewal plan, a
14:30 potential military renewal
14:32 plan.
14:33 We’re building our annual capital budget.
14:35 You’ll be probably seeing that towards the end of April, as well
14:39 as our operating budget.
14:41 So all these things are sort of interrelated.
14:43 And I’m going to spend a little bit of time talking through the
14:46 capital funding scenario for the
14:48 district.
14:49 So these are our three major capital sources of funding.
14:54 You see there are educational facilities impact fees, sales surtax,
14:59 and our local capital at 1.5 mils.
15:01 And how these relate to one another and to our district capital
15:06 programs is that the impact
15:08 fees, those are pretty easy and that those are paid by new
15:12 residential buildings.
15:14 So if you’re building an apartment complex, you’re building a
15:17 house, you pay an impact fee because
15:19 you potentially will be contributing students to our school
15:22 system.
15:23 And so those can only be used for new capacity.
15:27 So we can build classroom additions, we can build new schools.
15:30 We’ve done very well with that, using those resources for things
15:36 like a classroom addition
15:38 building at Cocoa High School.
15:40 We use them for a classroom addition at Southlake.
15:44 We built the Vieira Middle School, Vieira Elementary School with
15:47 South Area impact fees.
15:49 We’re looking at school additions at Westside Elementary, Bayside
15:54 High School, and some additional
15:56 capacity at Sunrise Elementary.
15:58 So these are typically used in higher growth areas because that’s
16:01 where the building and
16:03 development happens.
16:04 What we can’t use these for is anything that is a reconstruction.
16:08 So we have to be adding new student stations in order to use
16:11 these resources.
16:12 So we cannot replace an aging building using impact fees.
16:17 So our sales surtax has been defined in our both programs for
16:24 renewal.
16:25 So facility renewal, educational technology and security.
16:29 And there were some very specific project types that were
16:33 defined in the plans of work that
16:35 were put in front of the voters as part of the referendum.
16:39 So even though the referendum language was pretty short, there
16:43 were plans that were backstops
16:45 to the referendum language.
16:46 And we’ve been very true to what we committed to the voters to
16:50 do.
16:50 So it is legal to use sales surtax for rebuilds, for new builds.
16:56 It is not what we told the voters we were going to do with those
16:59 resources.
17:00 So it’s not part of our current program of work.
17:04 The third source of capital investment is the 1.5 mils property
17:08 tax.
17:09 And that has a much broader use.
17:12 We use that to pay our debt service.
17:14 And that’s about $38 million per year.
17:17 So it’s roughly a little less than half of that revenue source
17:20 right now.
17:21 Ten years ago, it was almost all of that revenue source.
17:25 But because our property values have increased, we’ve had a lot
17:28 more capacity to do capital
17:30 investments.
17:32 We use this resource for school bus purchases, technology
17:37 purchases, a lot of facility renewal,
17:41 property insurance.
17:42 And so we are using that to meet our capital needs as well as
17:47 for some of our personnel expenses
17:50 relating to maintenance of plant and capital project.
17:55 So the big red blob on the left side of the slide indicates we
17:59 have no dedicated funding
18:01 source for new builds or for rebuilds.
18:05 So we have aging schools.
18:07 In Sue’s perfect world, we would be, let’s start over, let’s
18:10 build a new building.
18:12 We have no source of funding for that activity.
18:15 So when we look at our long-term strategic facilities plan, it
18:19 is going to be painfully
18:21 clear that we do need to do some rebuilds.
18:24 And so I wanted to set up a little bit of a framework as to how
18:27 that might happen.
18:28 And there’s lots of permutations and options that the board can
18:31 consider, a lot of different
18:33 ways to do this.
18:35 And I just wanted to kind of set the stage for that conversation.
18:38 So the first half of what I’m going to talk about is all around
18:41 our financial picture for
18:43 the next 20-ish years.
18:46 So we’ve been thinking about, you know, we really need a
18:49 strategic approach, right?
18:51 So how are we going to do that?
18:53 Like, how are we going to prioritize the projects that we need
18:58 to do within some very limited resources?
19:00 So, you know, what I’ve been thinking about is that even though
19:04 I literally could spend the
19:06 entire district’s budget on facilities, you know, we don’t have
19:10 that luxury, right?
19:11 So we’ve got to prioritize how we invest our money.
19:15 And so our cadence of spending has been around renewal.
19:20 And that’s great because we have to continue to operate.
19:24 But we would be much more effective if we had newer buildings.
19:27 We’d have less operating expenses if we had newer buildings.
19:30 But how do you transition from older buildings to newer
19:33 buildings?
19:34 So this slide just kind of talks a little bit about, you know,
19:37 this would be a best practice,
19:39 right, to replace our assets before they reach the end of their
19:44 useful life.
19:45 But a lot of our buildings are functionally obsolete.
19:48 We keep them running.
19:49 They’re in really pretty good shape because of our sales tax
19:52 investments and our capital investments.
19:54 And so our learning environments are pretty stable.
19:56 We’ve done a really good job with our HVAC.
20:00 We’ve invested, top of my head, close to $200 million in air
20:03 conditioning over the past 10 years.
20:06 So my life used to be air conditioning is broken everywhere all
20:10 the time, and it’s not the situation anymore.
20:13 We’ve really managed to get ourselves in a position where we’re
20:16 doing preventative maintenance.
20:18 And so it’s worked well.
20:21 Same thing with playgrounds.
20:22 We’re just about at a place where our playgrounds are all within
20:26 their useful lifespan.
20:27 So that, ideally, would be the approach that we would use for
20:31 our school buildings in general.
20:33 But it’s going to take a long time and a lot of strategic
20:38 thinking to get us to that place.
20:40 This is just kind of a graph I pulled off the internet that kind
20:44 of shows that with any asset
20:47 in buildings in particular, right, you have to keep up your
20:50 maintenance.
20:51 And we had a period of time with very limited maintenance and we
20:55 were literally replacing it failure.
20:57 So we didn’t do anything until the air conditioning broke.
21:01 And by then it’s kind of too late.
21:02 You can see your building attributes decline over time,
21:06 especially if you are not making that investment in maintenance
21:10 and in replacement and refurbishment.
21:14 So this is sort of setting the stage for what WXY team is going
21:18 to be talking about today.
21:20 We looked at a lot of different options and a lot of different
21:25 ways to prioritize our strategic facilities planning.
21:29 And what it came down to is there’s kind of groups of topics
21:33 that we thought we would talk about together.
21:36 So the first one is looking at K-8 conversions.
21:39 And there are, I think, opportunities for us to both gain some
21:45 new buildings and revisit our configuration to a K-8.
21:50 And that might improve our competitiveness in the marketplace.
21:54 Most of our charters are K-8s, and that seems to be a successful
21:58 model in Brevard, and it’s challenging to transition.
22:02 But I think we have a few opportunities where we might want to
22:05 look at that as a potential option.
22:07 Also looked at opportunities to work towards more 7-12s.
22:12 We have some very successful 7-12s in our district.
22:15 That is another way to be a little bit more efficient with our
22:19 use of building space.
22:20 We can always do boundary adjustments.
22:23 Those are never fun for the facilities team, but that is a way
22:28 to balance our enrollment.
22:30 So we have a few of those on deck to talk about.
22:32 And then, obviously, we have some new capacity.
22:34 And then there’s a handful of things that don’t fit neatly into
22:37 those categories that we want to share with you this afternoon.
22:41 So from my perspective, this is a process, right?
22:48 So we have a lot of work to do.
22:50 Today’s a discussion of the board’s thinking on some of our
22:54 longer-term priorities, our strategies,
22:57 things that we in facilities should be working towards so that
23:01 we can deliver better buildings and better educational
23:04 environments for our students on a long-term basis.
23:06 But it does require a lot of community engagement.
23:09 It’s not just the facilities plan.
23:12 So I’m going to talk about our resources in a bit more detail
23:17 here.
23:18 So our impact fees, we bring in about $16 million a year.
23:23 About three-quarters of that is in the South District, which is
23:26 south of Barnes Boulevard.
23:28 So that picks up the Vieira area, Palm Bay, West Melbourne, some
23:32 of our higher-growth areas.
23:34 And so if you look at the cadence of revenue, which admittedly
23:38 is just basically what it is today.
23:40 And this is a highly volatile revenue source.
23:43 So it goes with the building industry.
23:46 So if something happens in the economy or in Brevard in general,
23:50 we don’t have the building.
23:51 We don’t have this revenue.
23:53 It is not a bondable revenue source.
23:55 So it’s just cash flow.
23:58 And we have an intergovernmental committee structure that makes
24:03 recommendations on how to spend that.
24:04 It goes to the school board, and then it goes across the street
24:08 to the county commission, and then we receive the revenue.
24:10 So it’s a process.
24:12 But the point here is for a 20-year period, we might be able to
24:17 do four to five projects out of this revenue source, given the
24:21 cost of construction that’s admittedly very generalized.
24:25 But we can’t do 30 projects.
24:29 We can do somewhere in the four, five, six range over that time
24:33 frame.
24:34 So the sales surtax, as I said, is distributed with 70% to
24:39 facility renewal, 15% each to security and educational
24:43 technology.
24:44 This is the 2020 sales surtax program.
24:48 And this slide shows you how we have invested our sales surtax
24:54 since the inception of the program in 2014 through January 31st
24:58 of ‘25.
24:59 So you see we’ve had a very, very strong investment in our
25:03 building system.
25:04 So we’re at 60% in HVAC, building envelope, and electrical.
25:11 Our next year or two is going to be heavily weighted towards
25:15 electrical and roofing systems.
25:17 So those are projects that are on deck that are very expensive.
25:19 So that group at the top is going to continue through the life
25:24 of the 2020 program.
25:26 As you can also see in the purple shaded areas, those are items
25:30 that were not eligible under the 2014 sales tax, but are
25:34 eligible under the 2020 sales tax.
25:36 So we have done a lot.
25:38 We’ve done a fair amount of work in athletics, playgrounds,
25:42 classroom conditions.
25:44 So we’re starting to see some improvements on the inside of the
25:48 buildings as well as on some of our ancillary facilities.
25:51 The 2014 program was largely invisible.
25:54 It was a lot of air conditioning.
25:55 We did chillers and, you know, AHUs and all of those things that
25:59 nobody gets to see.
26:00 What we’re doing now is also something that our community can
26:04 see the results of our surtax investments.
26:06 So this is a dashboard that shows you the breadth of categories
26:13 that we are assessing on a regular basis.
26:17 Our team has taken the facility assessment work that was done
26:22 back in 2019 and 2020.
26:25 We’ve updated that data.
26:26 We’ve converted a lot of it to a smart sheet format.
26:29 And we’re able to build programs based on the condition of these
26:34 assets.
26:35 And this list is growing as time goes on.
26:38 But I wanted you and the community to see that we really have a
26:41 pretty good handle on the condition of our stuff.
26:44 And we are going to be able to build really pretty solid
26:48 programs based on what we see as the life cycle of each of these
26:55 assets and how often we need to do replacements.
26:58 This is just an example using playgrounds where we have
27:03 extracted the data from our assessment database and established
27:09 a useful lifespan of each of our assets.
27:12 And it gives you a sense of, OK, these are the next group of
27:15 playgrounds that we need to replace.
27:17 And so we are actively in the process of doing that.
27:20 But if you extrapolate this out for a 20-year period and across
27:25 a number of categories of assets, you can really start to build
27:29 a good annual program of capital investments for surtax capital
27:33 or whatever source of revenue we may have available for us.
27:38 So thinking about how we might use an extension of the surtax
27:42 over time, I kind of looked at over a 20-year period, the
27:48 average annual revenue is potentially about $68 million.
27:52 If we stay with the allocation of 70% to facility renewal and
27:58 you look at allocating percentages to major building systems as
28:04 well as ancillary facilities,
28:06 you can see it pretty quickly consumes the revenue that we would
28:10 project from that resource.
28:12 And then on the security and the ET side, those numbers seem big,
28:17 $10 million.
28:18 But if you distribute that over every school, it’s really not
28:22 that much.
28:23 And so in security and ET, the work is often distributed among
28:29 all of the schools, whereas the work in facilities is a school
28:34 at a time.
28:35 We in facilities are rarely doing one thing at every school at
28:38 the same time.
28:39 So there’s lots of permutations to this.
28:42 This is just an example, and it really is meant to show you that
28:46 we can consume the sales surtax resources on facility renewal
28:51 pretty easily and make good decisions and good investment.
28:55 So looking 20 years ahead, I did an example.
29:00 So I thought, well, what if we looked at 70% facilities but take
29:04 10% of that and put it towards a new build?
29:07 So what if we did that?
29:08 So if we did that, we would end up with about $4.5 million or so
29:12 a year.
29:13 That’s really not enough to do anything impactful.
29:16 And so in order to get the numbers in the blue column bigger,
29:19 the numbers in the facility renewal column have to get smaller,
29:22 which means I’m doing less stuff in the renewal arena.
29:26 So I’m very worried about under investing in our renewal, given
29:31 the age and condition of our buildings.
29:33 Like we really need to keep up the cadence of maintaining our
29:37 buildings.
29:38 So what I’ll be recommending to you is if the board is inclined
29:42 to consider a sales surtax renewal, that we would not allocate a
29:47 specific percentage for renewal, but simply include in the
29:51 authorizing resolution the opportunity to do that should
29:55 revenues improve or cost decline or some combination of the two,
29:59 as is what happened with the 2020 program.
30:01 We developed a very conservative program.
30:04 We’ve had a fair amount of revenue that is over and above what
30:07 we had originally programmed, and it’s allowed us to do more and
30:10 better projects.
30:11 And I would want to continue that same philosophy for a renewal
30:16 of the surtax.
30:17 Now, this actually looked at a 20-year potential timeframe.
30:24 The legislature has a bill in front of them at the moment that
30:28 would limit the term of the sales surtax to eight years.
30:31 So that appears poised to pass, so that may be something that we’ll
30:36 need to consider if the board is inclined to look at a renewal
30:40 that we would be limited to eight years.
30:43 That would further limit any use of that resource for new builds.
30:48 There is some language in the proposed bill around 30-year
30:52 bonding, so should the board be inclined to do anything relative
30:56 to financing?
30:57 There are some other caveats, but that’s a discussion for down
31:01 the road.
31:02 So this is the financial look-ahead, and again, you know, I’m
31:07 just doing some basic estimating, assuming about a 2.5% increase
31:12 in property values of our local capital resources, extracting
31:18 the charter school share, and then looking at the balance that’s
31:23 available for use in our district.
31:26 And again, we’re at about $70 million right about now.
31:30 About $38 of that is for debt service.
31:33 We use about $10 for property insurance.
31:36 And so the balance is what we use for school buses and
31:39 technology and facility renewal.
31:41 So I have looked at this in the sense that in ‘32, we start to
31:47 partially retire our debt, and in ‘36, I believe, we fully
31:52 retire our debt.
31:53 And so we will have some capacity for resources in the out years
31:58 that we don’t currently have.
32:00 So if we’re looking at a cash flow scenario, my recommendation
32:04 is we start to plan for some major projects that are four or
32:07 five, six years out.
32:09 And when you see the range of options, it’s going to take us a
32:14 year or two to get through those options and what the priorities
32:18 are so that we can make good decisions
32:19 and pick out the top three, four or five projects that we want
32:23 to do that are big, game-changing projects in our district.
32:28 So bottom line, classroom additions, new schools, impact fees,
32:33 sales tax.
32:34 I would recommend to you that we, if we are looking at renewing
32:38 the sales surtax, we do something similar to what we have now
32:41 but expand the potential use for rebuilds.
32:45 And then plan to use the capacity created in the local capital
32:50 created by the retirement of our debt service for planning some
32:55 new build projects.
32:57 I just want to make a quick caveat as we were working on this,
33:01 realize that we have a lot of schools that have older buildings
33:04 and newer buildings.
33:05 And we have to go through a process with the Florida Department
33:09 of Education in order to raise a building.
33:11 And so it’s not as easy as we’re going to just replace X school
33:15 with the new school.
33:17 We actually have to go through a process to retire a school
33:21 building with the DOE.
33:22 And that it’s doable, but because we have some campuses that
33:25 have newer and older buildings, we’ll have to think about that a
33:29 little bit more closely as well.
33:31 And then based on the board’s direction, I think one of the next
33:34 most important steps is community engagement,
33:36 both generally and then around any of the specific
33:39 recommendations the board may have for us.
33:41 And I think that is where I turn this over to Dare Brawley, who
33:45 is our project manager from WXY.
33:48 Thank you.
33:52 Mr. Chair.
33:53 Let’s check if that’s –
33:54 Can I just ask a question of this?
33:57 Just out of curiosity, what’s your projection if we were not to
34:01 renew the sales surtax?
34:03 What’s the – how important is that to what you’ve just provided?
34:07 It is absolutely critically important to what I’ve just provided.
34:13 Mr. Thomas, thank you for asking.
34:15 Thank you.
34:16 I have one quick question too, sorry.
34:18 Have we done any type of impact fee study in comparison for Brevard
34:21 County and our surrounding counties?
34:23 Where do we rank?
34:24 So we are much lower than our surrounding counties.
34:28 The impact fees are actually enacted by the county commission.
34:31 Right.
34:32 They are probably coming up on a new impact fee study timeframe
34:35 relatively soon because it has been a while.
34:37 Okay.
34:38 So our rates are pretty low.
34:39 They are probably about a quarter of what the cost is.
34:44 Like if you were actually to cover the cost because so much time
34:48 has gone on and costs have increased so much, ours are pretty
34:52 low.
34:52 Okay.
34:53 And does the school board typically initiate the ask of the
34:56 county commission to do that study or is that something that
34:58 they do on their own?
34:59 It’s usually something they would do on their own.
35:01 We could ask.
35:02 I think that is something that if you all are interested in us
35:05 doing a little deeper dive into it, we can do that and start
35:09 those conversations with our counterparts across the street.
35:11 Okay.
35:12 I think it’s worth exploring board, but that will be, that will
35:16 be your call.
35:17 Thank you.
35:19 Okay.
35:20 Great.
35:21 And that’s on, correct?
35:22 Seems like it.
35:23 Thank you so much, Ms. Han and members of the school board.
35:27 It’s wonderful to see you all again.
35:29 We’re going to be sharing some updates and findings based on our
35:32 work so far to develop strategies as part of this long-term
35:36 strategic facilities plan for BPS schools.
35:40 In the material that WXY will share today that we have produced
35:44 in coordination with Sara Lee Morrissey of Sara Lee Morrissey
35:47 Consulting, we’re going to provide some additional context for
35:50 the importance and also the real opportunity in doing this work
35:55 now.
35:55 We’ll share insights that we’ve received from preliminary
35:58 community engagement that we’ve conducted so far.
36:01 And then we’ll share our approach to developing possible
36:06 strategies for inclusion in a plan.
36:09 Really, we’re here to present those for your consideration.
36:13 And then later for consideration by the Brevard community and
36:17 the district overall.
36:18 So this work has been grounded in the kind of vision statement
36:23 that we set in coordination with the district in the fall.
36:27 Really trying to anchor this work in seeking to ensure that we
36:31 are supporting excellent 21st century learning environments in
36:36 Brevard for all students in the district through an effective
36:40 use of resources.
36:41 So I want to just have that as a backbone of how we’ve been
36:44 approaching this work so far.
36:46 I will turn it over to my colleague Sara Lee Morrissey who will
36:50 share more about kind of why now, what’s the significance of
36:53 this work.
36:53 Sara Lee Morrissey: All right.
36:54 Sara Lee Morrissey: Good afternoon.
36:55 Sara Lee Morrissey: This is working.
36:56 Sara Lee Morrissey: Okay.
36:57 Sara Lee Morrissey: Good afternoon.
36:58 Sara Lee Morrissey: It’s good to see you all again.
36:59 Sara Lee Morrissey: Thank you for coming.
37:00 Sara Lee Morrissey: Yeah.
37:01 Sara Lee Morrissey: It’s, you know, the benefit of a long-term
37:10 strategic plan for facilities is that, one, as you know, or at
37:16 least those of you who have been on the board for a little while,
37:19 takes a long time to get from whatever facility to get from that
37:22 facility.
37:22 Sara Lee Morrissey: idea you may have to actual implementation.
37:27 Sara Lee Morrissey: There’s a number of steps, process, and many
37:32 points of decision making that occur before that time that the
37:37 idea becomes something that you choose to implement, becomes
37:42 something that actually ends up being physical in time and space.
37:48 Sara Lee Morrissey: So the benefit of this particular plan for
37:52 you is that it is giving you a very long look, certainly a
37:56 longer look at some issues, potential trends, past trends, what’s
38:03 happening in the future as it relates to enrollment, but also
38:07 some issues associated with facilities conditions.
38:10 Sara Lee Morrissey: And it’s giving you the time to contemplate
38:14 and think about that information as it relates to your
38:18 facilities.
38:19 Sara Lee Morrissey: I want to emphasize both for you all as well
38:24 as anyone who is listening to this presentation that there are
38:29 no decisions as a part of today’s presentation and even
38:35 potential decisions that you may be interested in making.
38:40 Sara Lee Morrissey: I suspect that any idea that comes forward
38:45 today, any of the strategies still require considerable detail
38:52 analysis.
38:53 Sara Lee Morrissey: Both Sue and Derek have mentioned and we’ll
38:57 discuss further about community engagement, stakeholder input.
39:02 Sara Lee Morrissey: So this is for information to provoke some
39:08 thinking, ask some questions, and give you some things that
39:12 perhaps you’ll think about.
39:15 Sara Lee Morrissey: Maybe not tonight, but if it’s very
39:18 compelling, hopefully.
39:20 Sara Lee Morrissey: But things that you’ll want to think through
39:24 as you move forward with not just capital budgeting this year,
39:28 but as you kind of played a lot of the decisions in your future.
39:33 Sara Lee Morrissey: One last thing I do want to mention for you
39:38 all, because I think it’s important to hear good things about
39:40 your staff.
39:41 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, Sue mentioned the dashboard assessment
39:45 assessment, assessment that provided public schools has.
39:48 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, this happened a while ago.
39:50 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, she led a conversation with facility
39:54 districts across our state, many of whom have a lot of new folks,
40:00 younger people without a school facility background and really,
40:05 um, mentored and gave forth so much good information.
40:09 Sara Lee Morrissey: About how Brevard is implementing, uh,
40:13 facility assessment, uh, data and how critical it is for you to
40:18 make, um, your, your priority and budgeting decisions.
40:22 Sara Lee Morrissey: And I really wanted to take a moment and
40:26 commend her and let you know, um, that you’re lucky.
40:29 Sara Lee Morrissey: She’s the best.
40:30 Sara Lee Morrissey: We know.
40:31 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, in case you didn’t know.
40:33 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, okay.
40:35 Sara Lee Morrissey: So we want to move forward and just put a
40:38 little bit of context around some data points as it relates to
40:42 both enrollments, um, as well as facility conditions.
40:46 Sara Lee Morrissey: I know you all go to a lot of different
40:48 meetings where you see some of your colleagues, other school
40:50 board members.
40:51 Sara Lee Morrissey: And I think it’s good information for you to,
40:56 to know, uh, how you sit relative to your other, um, school,
41:00 school districts.
41:01 Sara Lee Morrissey: And, um, everybody has their own issues.
41:05 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, no one is quite the same, but this shows
41:10 you, uh, your traditional school enrollment along with Central
41:16 Florida.
41:16 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, you know, what I consider some of whom
41:19 are relatively comparable.
41:20 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, others are, you know, uh, larger and
41:24 other smaller growth rates are different.
41:27 Sara Lee Morrissey: But it, you can see how your traditional
41:31 school enrollment, uh, is compared to your, uh, fellow districts
41:36 and then percent charter school enrollment.
41:38 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, Brevard is at 13% statewide, 14%.
41:43 Sara Lee Morrissey: So you’re right there where the state is in
41:46 terms of how you relate specifically.
41:48 Sara Lee Morrissey: And the reason we pull out, uh, charter
41:51 school enrollment is because it’s a little bit of a tug on where
41:54 we see students moving
41:56 Sara Lee Morrissey: And how it relates to some of the
41:58 conversations we want to have with, uh, utilization and
42:02 enrollment trends.
42:03 Sara Lee Morrissey: You can say, see that, um, you have
42:07 considerably more charter schools and enrollment than Seminole
42:11 and Volusia,
42:12 Sara Lee Morrissey: but not nearly, uh, the charter school
42:16 enrollment as Osceola, Lake, or Polk.
42:18 Sara Lee Morrissey: And you’re very comparable to Pasco.
42:21 Sara Lee Morrissey: And, um, Pasco is a suburban county, just
42:26 north, a little bit northeast of Tampa.
42:28 Sara Lee Morrissey: So let’s look at growth and, you know, why
42:35 do we show a change in population from 1990 to 2020?
42:40 Sara Lee Morrissey: That’s a 30 year period.
42:42 Sara Lee Morrissey: It’s pretty significant.
42:43 Sara Lee Morrissey: But when we’re talking about the life of
42:46 facilities, facilities, if they’re constructed well, have a long
42:51 life.
42:51 Sara Lee Morrissey: Right?
42:52 Sara Lee Morrissey: Generally, the rule of thumb tends to be
42:55 about 50 years, plus or minus.
42:57 Sara Lee Morrissey: Again, depending on the era they were built,
43:00 uh, the materials used and the quality of construction.
43:03 Sara Lee Morrissey: So, and as we know here in Brevard, uh, you
43:09 all had a huge boom when the space, uh, space industry came.
43:14 Sara Lee Morrissey: So your sixties through your eighties were
43:17 really big decades for you.
43:19 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, and that’s when you did a lot of
43:21 construction, new school construction.
43:23 Sara Lee Morrissey: In the 30 years that we’re showing here, you
43:27 can see a very relatively stable, um, but positive,
43:32 Sara Lee Morrissey: Growth rate for total population at 1.7.
43:35 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, and you can see how that varies.
43:37 Sara Lee Morrissey: Again, uh, Brevard and Volusia, very similar.
43:41 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, but look at Osceola, which of course is
43:44 right outside Disney.
43:45 Sara Lee Morrissey: Huge, huge growth rate at 8.7%.
43:48 Sara Lee Morrissey: But more, um, important is our market, our
43:53 market, population under 18.
43:55 Sara Lee Morrissey: That period between 1990 and 2020 has been
44:00 relatively slow here in Brevard.
44:01 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, things did slow down and you can see how
44:06 that relates to your neighbors.
44:09 Sara Lee Morrissey: Again, very, very comparable to Volusia, um,
44:13 Seminole as well.
44:15 Sara Lee Morrissey: But you can see some of the others, again,
44:18 particularly Osceola at 7.8%, considerably higher growth rate.
44:23 Sara Lee Morrissey: And, um, for Florida statewide, we’ve got
44:28 one and a half percent, which I would consider a pretty, pretty
44:33 nice stable.
44:34 Sara Lee Morrissey: We can deal with that growth rate.
44:37 Sara Lee Morrissey: All right.
44:38 Sara Lee Morrissey: So what, um, what’s happened since, um, 2020?
44:43 Sara Lee Morrissey: Let’s take a closer look.
44:44 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, so what we have here is the change in
44:50 our population under 18 since 2015.
44:54 Sara Lee Morrissey: Like let’s get past the great recession.
44:57 Sara Lee Morrissey: All school districts in Florida, um, all
45:00 lost considerable enrollment.
45:02 Sara Lee Morrissey: So let’s, let’s take that out and see what’s
45:05 happening.
45:06 Sara Lee Morrissey: You can see that Brevard’s gone up, um, from
45:09 that 0.8, um, by a couple of, um, tenths of a percent.
45:14 Sara Lee Morrissey: As also have, uh, several of the other
45:18 districts.
45:19 Sara Lee Morrissey: The Seminole has dropped considerably since
45:24 that time.
45:25 Sara Lee Morrissey: And Seminole is getting pretty close to
45:27 being built out.
45:28 Sara Lee Morrissey: So they’re really stuck.
45:30 Sara Lee Morrissey: It’s a much smaller district geographically.
45:33 Sara Lee Morrissey: And I think you all know the challenges of
45:36 having a large geographic district.
45:38 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, but really other than Brevard, the only
45:42 other district that has shown growth
45:44 Sara Lee Morrissey: in this 2015 to 2023 period that is greater
45:49 than that 30 year period is Polk.
45:51 Sara Lee Morrissey: By about the same, uh, three tenths of a
45:54 percent.
45:55 Sara Lee Morrissey: Now, you know, we were hit by the pandemic
46:00 in 2020, 2021.
46:03 Sara Lee Morrissey: And, uh, again, many districts saw some declines.
46:07 Sara Lee Morrissey: So we took a real quick look at, well, what’s
46:10 happened, uh, since that period of time.
46:13 Sara Lee Morrissey: And we presented some data to you at the
46:17 December presentation that breaks out.
46:20 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, the change in traditional enrollment
46:24 here in Brevard and charter schools overall together.
46:28 Sara Lee Morrissey: Since 2020, you can see a positive annual
46:32 growth rate of 0.9%.
46:34 Sara Lee Morrissey: So again, that’s, that’s going back to being
46:37 something similar to that, um, that 1990 to 2020.
46:42 Sara Lee Morrissey: Yeah.
46:43 Sara Lee Morrissey: But if you take a closer look and I, I’m
46:46 going to call your attention to the last two years.
46:50 Sara Lee Morrissey: And the reason I call your attention to the
46:52 last two years, and it’s not on this screen, is if you remember
46:57 in the 2023 legislature,
47:02 Sara Lee Morrissey: they adopted House Bill 1.
47:05 Sara Lee Morrissey: And House Bill 1 expanded the use of the
47:09 state scholarship program or voucher program,
47:12 Sara Lee Morrissey: however you want to refer to that, expanded
47:15 the use of it, removed all income thresholds,
47:19 Sara Lee Morrissey: and made, um, those dollars available for
47:23 any kind of private school and any kind of homeschooling
47:26 resources.
47:26 Sara Lee Morrissey: So what we have seen in the last two years
47:30 where that legislation has been effective,
47:33 Sara Lee Morrissey: is we’ve seen a real change in our
47:36 enrollment trend, um, here in Brevard,
47:39 Sara Lee Morrissey: in that the traditional school enrollment
47:42 has dropped in those two years by about 1.7%.
47:45 Sara Lee Morrissey: And the charter growth, it’s still a
47:48 positive, but, but it has slowed considerably.
47:52 Sara Lee Morrissey: So one point that I want to make to you, you
47:55 know, for two years it’s hard to call it a trend.
47:58 Sara Lee Morrissey: I, I would not call it a trend yet.
48:01 Sara Lee Morrissey: But because that’s pretty significant, um,
48:06 um, numbers and stats and more importantly implications,
48:11 Sara Lee Morrissey: I would caution you to keep looking at that
48:16 as we move forward to see what is, how that may be impacting,
48:22 Sara Lee Morrissey: um, all of our schools, both charter and
48:25 traditional.
48:26 Sara Lee Morrissey: All right, so let’s move on to facility
48:30 conditions.
48:31 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, Sue’s been very pointed in, uh, some of
48:36 her, uh, commentaries.
48:37 Sara Lee Morrissey: So this is information that y’all are very
48:40 familiar with.
48:41 Sara Lee Morrissey: You do have old schools.
48:43 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, many going back to the period of the
48:46 1960s and even earlier.
48:48 Sara Lee Morrissey: So Brevard’s average facility age is 41
48:52 years, whereas the statewide average is 34 years.
48:55 Sara Lee Morrissey: And certainly across, um, the central
48:58 Florida districts.
48:59 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, you’ve got the oldest, um, stock with
49:04 Volusia and Lake coming in, uh, not too far behind.
49:08 Sara Lee Morrissey: Osceola, again, Osceola has grown so much in
49:13 such a relatively short period and recent period.
49:17 Sara Lee Morrissey: And they have such a high charter enrollment
49:21 that would account for why they have a relatively young facility
49:26 age of 21.
49:28 Sara Lee Morrissey: Utilization.
49:30 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, you’ll see a lot more about this.
49:33 Sara Lee Morrissey: I know we pointed it out in December and we’re
49:36 going to discuss it some more today.
49:37 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, utilization is basically the enrollment
49:41 at the school, uh, divided by capacity.
49:44 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, per, uh, this happens to be both your
49:47 permanent and relocatable capacity because we were looking at it
49:52 across all of these districts and the data available to us is
49:56 through DOE in the work plan.
49:59 Sara Lee Morrissey: But it gives you an idea of whether or not
50:03 you’re optimizing the use of your schools because you’re paying
50:09 for utilities as well as, um, all kinds of maintenance,
50:13 regardless of how many students are there, as well as, um, your
50:17 traditional overhead light labor.
50:20 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, so Brevard is at 69%, uh, which is the
50:25 lowest utilization across, uh, the, the neighboring districts
50:31 with, again, Volusia not too far behind at 73%.
50:35 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, big issue that we want to call to your
50:39 attention and you’ll see a lot of as we move forward is schools
50:43 with utilizations under 60%.
50:44 Sara Lee Morrissey: Because these are what we really consider,
50:49 um, not well utilized at all and things that we should be
50:52 looking at as to how can we improve the utilization.
50:56 Sara Lee Morrissey: And you have 25% of your schools, a quarter
51:00 of your stock is with utilizations under 60%.
51:03 Sara Lee Morrissey: A lot of that may be that pool associated
51:07 with people making different decisions and going to charters and
51:11 or other types of school.
51:13 Sara Lee Morrissey: But, uh, another piece of it can be the
51:16 change over time in our neighborhoods, right?
51:19 Sara Lee Morrissey: We see a lot of growth within, um, the Vieira
51:25 and south part of Brevard are newer neighborhoods, but you’re a
51:30 very big county.
51:31 Sara Lee Morrissey: You have a lot of neighborhoods, a lot of
51:34 schools, things are changing in those older neighborhoods.
51:37 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, again, you can see the difference Seminoles
51:41 doing really, really well.
51:43 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, I’ll just say, I think it’s easy for
51:47 them to do well when they’re such a tight geographic, um, a
51:51 smaller, uh, compact district.
51:54 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, Volusia’s at, uh, 13% and everybody else
51:59 is kind of hovering around there.
52:01 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, so you spent some time, uh, I thought
52:12 really, really good information and a lot of details, uh,
52:21 associated with how you’re spending capital.
52:24 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, but I, I want to remind you the pie
52:31 doesn’t change, but pieces within the pie have changed.
52:36 Sara Lee Morrissey: And in particular, when we think about,
52:39 again, the life of a facility, how has it changed for you all
52:43 and, and, uh, the need to prioritize.
52:46 Sara Lee Morrissey: You saw that out of your sales tax revenue,
52:49 you’re dedicating 15% to security and 15% to technology.
52:53 Sara Lee Morrissey: Those two line items didn’t used to be here,
52:57 you know, decades ago.
52:58 Sara Lee Morrissey: Those are relatively new line items.
53:02 Sara Lee Morrissey: Certainly, certainly security, what we’ve
53:06 been spending on security over the last 10 years is considerably
53:10 significant.
53:11 Sara Lee Morrissey: But you know, for the last 20 years is
53:14 really when those two line items started to become regular line
53:19 items in our capital budgets.
53:21 Sara Lee Morrissey: But they, they compete with everything else
53:26 for the same pie.
53:29 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, so here’s a good look at how your
53:37 capital expenditures and this is just for the last four years.
53:44 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, what those look like on a per student
53:48 basis based on the age of your facility.
53:52 Sara Lee Morrissey: And there’s no surprise here, perhaps the
53:56 surprise is just the number.
53:58 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, you know, $5,900 per student, uh, for
54:03 facility maintenance, renewal, um, however you want to term it,
54:09 um, for your facilities over 60 years old.
54:12 Sara Lee Morrissey: Makes total sense.
54:13 Sara Lee Morrissey: These are very old facilities.
54:14 Sara Lee Morrissey: They need a lot of TLC, uh, to, to continue
54:19 to be used to continue to be safe.
54:21 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, and you can see how that compares to the,
54:25 uh, younger school facilities.
54:27 Sara Lee Morrissey: It’s pretty much double.
54:29 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, and this does not include any dollars
54:33 spent on capacity additions.
54:35 Sara Lee Morrissey: So this is just, um, sales tax and, and LCIF
54:39 dollars.
54:40 Sara Lee Morrissey: And then, um, looking again at school
54:45 utilization, uh, you can see here, um, for schools that are less
54:51 than 60% utilized, you’re spending over $8,000 per student on,
54:58 um, in capital.
54:59 Sara Lee Morrissey: Again, this is just for the last four years,
55:03 um, which is about twice the amount for those schools that are
55:08 over 80% utilized.
55:09 Sara Lee Morrissey: And I would say 80% is a nice target to get
55:13 at.
55:13 Sara Lee Morrissey: Gives you some breathing room.
55:14 Sara Lee Morrissey: We know that some programs, um, it’s, it’s,
55:18 some programs require more space than DOE may, um, recognize.
55:24 Sara Lee Morrissey: But, um, I think it’s, it’s a good target
55:28 and, um, and then lastly, uh, for this section, um, uh, very
55:38 similar slide to what you might’ve seen in December.
55:41 Sara Lee Morrissey: Uh, taking a look at utilization based on
55:45 permanent capacity across our traditional schools.
55:48 Sara Lee Morrissey: And what I’d, I’d call your attention to is,
55:51 is purple, which dark purple is less than 60% and light purple
55:56 is 60 to 80%.
55:57 Sara Lee Morrissey: That is 42 schools over, you know, what we’re,
56:03 what we’re showing here is using our, um, Brevard County School
56:07 District projections, enrollment projections over the next four
56:10 years.
56:10 Sara Lee Morrissey: So you’ve got 42 schools, um, in that.
56:16 Sara Lee Morrissey: And then if you look at the orange colors,
56:20 uh, in particular, the schools that are over 105%, right?
56:27 Sara Lee Morrissey: So these are pretty much your schools that
56:30 are in your, your growth areas.
56:31 Sara Lee Morrissey: It goes from four schools to nine schools.
56:36 Sara Lee Morrissey: So increasing what’s happening at, uh, utilizations
56:42 over 105% and kind of staying stable, um, for those that are
56:47 considered underutilized.
56:48 Sara Lee Morrissey: Super.
56:49 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, so with that as a kind of data driven
56:54 backdrop and context for this work, um, we’re going to share out,
56:58 um, a bit of what we’ve heard so far, um, in, uh, the initial
57:03 community engagement that we’ve conducted in our work to date,
57:06 really as part of this baseline, um, analysis work.
57:09 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, so this, uh, was conducted over the
57:13 winter, um, and included, um, uh, online survey that was open to
57:17 the full district community.
57:19 Sara Lee Morrissey: This was advertised, um, by BPS on the
57:22 website via social media.
57:24 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, and I believe also went out via text
57:27 blast, um, to parents and families in the district.
57:29 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, and we also held five small group
57:32 discussions with groups that are active, um, in the Brevard, um,
57:35 school communities.
57:36 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, we were really pleased to see this level
57:39 of engagement with a community survey just at this kind of
57:42 initial research stage of this process.
57:44 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, really heartening to see the engagement
57:47 and interest in the community and engaging with this work.
57:49 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, we had almost 2000 responses.
57:52 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, this represented, uh, schools, um, from
57:55 across the district.
57:56 Sara Lee Morrissey: We had respondents from every single, um, BPS
57:59 traditional school.
58:00 Sara Lee Morrissey: The number of respondents varied somewhat by
58:03 school, but we were really pleased to see that distribution.
58:05 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, most of the folks who responded were
58:08 parents, uh, to the survey.
58:09 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, so through, uh, both the survey and the
58:13 small group conversations, um, we, uh, heard from folks about,
58:19 um, their experiences with Brevard public school facilities.
58:21 Sara Lee Morrissey: And I’ll share out, um, some quotes and kind
58:23 of summarize findings, um, from those conversations with you all.
58:26 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, we heard about the challenges related to
58:31 facility conditions associated with aging schools in a number of
58:34 these conversations and in comments, um, and responses to the
58:37 survey questions.
58:38 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, heard from folks about challenges
58:41 related to systems in need of upgrades, um, classrooms whose
58:45 sizes and configurations, um, are outdated and not well suited
58:50 to the needs of 21st century learning environments.
58:53 Sara Lee Morrissey: Small group activities, project-based
58:56 learning, um, classrooms that are, were not designed, um, with
59:00 that, uh, those kind of educational models, um, in mind.
59:03 Sara Lee Morrissey: As well, we heard about, um, the kind of
59:07 uneven condition of schools across the district, um, as well as
59:11 an appreciation on the part of community members for the
59:15 challenges that the Brevard public school facilities, um, teams
59:19 faces in needing to maintain such a diverse range of school, um,
59:24 building types and then also specific facilities, um, within
59:27 schools.
59:27 Sara Lee Morrissey: Um, we also heard, um, a desire for more and
59:32 better kind of specialized facilities spaces, some of the types
59:37 of spaces that kind of, um, make for, um, you know, are
59:41 especially relevant at the upper grade levels around sports
59:44 fields and performing arts spaces, um, a real desire to improve,
59:48 um, and make, uh, make these spaces that really are, um,
59:51 wonderful, um, for students, um, and a kind of need there.
59:55 Sara Lee Morrissey: We also heard about, um, some of the
59:59 challenges that facility condition, um, can have on kind of
1:00:02 morale, um, and the challenges that older facilities pose, um,
1:00:07 to the new kinds of school, um, security requirements, um, that
1:00:11 are in place today that weren’t there previously.
1:00:13 Sara Lee Morrissey: Mr. Chair, may I ask a question?
1:00:14 Sara Lee Morrissey: Yes.
1:00:15 Sara Lee Morrissey: All right.
1:00:16 Sara Lee Morrissey: Sorry, I don’t mean to interject.
1:00:17 Sara Lee Morrissey: No, please.
1:00:18 Sara Lee Morrissey: But I just want to, I, I have to ask this
1:00:19 question because I am on the board and I’m also a parent of an
1:00:21 enrolled student in BPS schools.
1:00:24 Sara Lee Morrissey: So the survey that was available, can you
1:00:27 talk a little bit about that?
1:00:29 Sara Lee Morrissey: Because I don’t feel like that was made
1:00:30 available to every single parent.
1:00:31 Sara Lee Morrissey: So can you share with how that was disseminated
1:00:34 out to the community?
1:00:35 Sara Lee Morrissey: Because I, like I said, as a board member
1:00:38 and a parent, didn’t see the opportunity to fill the survey out
1:00:40 or I would have done so.
1:00:40 Sara Lee Morrissey: So can you share that with the board?
1:00:42 Sara Lee Morrissey: Yeah, absolutely.
1:00:43 Sara Lee Morrissey: We shared the link and it went live when we
1:00:47 were here last in December and announced that during this
1:00:52 meeting.
1:00:52 Sara Lee Morrissey: And the link was live in a banner on the BPS
1:00:56 website for the month of December until, from December 12th.
1:01:01 Sara Lee Morrissey: You got it?
1:01:02 Sara Lee Morrissey: Through the focus?
1:01:03 Sara Lee Morrissey: End of January.
1:01:04 Sara Lee Morrissey: Yeah.
1:01:05 Sara Lee Morrissey: And then it went out via text, I think two
1:01:08 times was my understanding and also was posted on social media.
1:01:11 Sara Lee Morrissey: Okay.
1:01:12 Sara Lee Morrissey: All right.
1:01:13 Well, then I need to follow up and find out why I didn’t get any
1:01:15 notification.
1:01:16 Sara Lee Morrissey: Thank you.
1:01:17 Sara Lee Morrissey: I will say, I think, you know, obviously
1:01:19 that’s 2,000 responses.
1:01:20 That’s a large number of responses to have through an online
1:01:23 survey about a research project about facilities.
1:01:26 But that’s not the whole district.
1:01:27 Sara Lee Morrissey: Right.
1:01:28 Sara Lee Morrissey: And this is, that’s really the very first
1:01:30 moment of community engagement that we’ve,
1:01:32 have done in a kind of district-wide context.
1:01:34 And it’s the first of what will need to be many more.
1:01:36 So I absolutely want to underscore that.
1:01:38 Sara Lee Morrissey: Okay.
1:01:39 Thank you.
1:01:40 Sara Lee Morrissey: Great.
1:01:41 Just a couple of photos from site visits that Sara Lee and I
1:01:47 took with Dave and team in December.
1:01:51 As well as hearing about some of the challenges that folks
1:01:56 experience in BPS schools and in relation
1:01:59 to facilities.
1:02:00 And we also heard both through the survey and in the small group
1:02:03 state over conversations,
1:02:04 some ideas from community members about what types of strategies
1:02:08 the district might consider
1:02:09 to address some of these challenges.
1:02:12 So these are a couple of quotes and summarized notes from those
1:02:16 initial conversations and survey responses.
1:02:19 We heard from folks about some of the kind of suggestions around
1:02:25 balancing enrollment through boundary changes potentially,
1:02:30 as well as considerations of possible opportunities for
1:02:35 replacing and consolidating facilities.
1:02:38 A suggestion that’s a direct quote from one survey respondent
1:02:42 that was kind of echoed in a number of representative comments,
1:02:45 but this is just one, calling out a potential example of
1:02:49 removing an old middle school and elementary school
1:02:51 and replacing that with one bigger K-8 school.
1:02:54 So we’ll talk more about strategies as we get further on, but we
1:02:57 were really interested to see both concrete,
1:03:00 specific suggestions from the community as well as a kind of
1:03:03 general willingness to look at the challenges at hand
1:03:06 and think about what are the types of strategies that can
1:03:11 meaningfully impact them.
1:03:14 So with that, as the kind of backdrop, both the comparisons with
1:03:18 relevant peer districts and what we’ve heard so far
1:03:22 in the very initial community engagement, I’ll move into talking
1:03:26 about some of our approach to developing the set of ideas
1:03:29 that we’re here to bring forth for discussion.
1:03:33 So this has been grounded in the work that we presented in
1:03:37 December,
1:03:39 considering three kind of pillars of excellence as it relates to
1:03:43 educational facilities,
1:03:45 looking at enrollment facilities and programs.
1:03:48 This is the kind of grounding and brought us through our
1:03:52 approach here.
1:03:53 In relation to those kind of three pillars, we look at key
1:03:56 challenges as they impact individual schools in the district
1:04:01 through three kind of key lenses.
1:04:05 Looking at the capture rate of schools, this refers to for BPS
1:04:09 traditional boundary schools,
1:04:12 what percentage of the students who are zoned to attend that
1:04:16 school choose to attend that school.
1:04:17 We consider that as a kind of measure of the attractiveness of
1:04:20 the programs that the school offers,
1:04:22 and its educational offerings.
1:04:25 We look also at facility condition.
1:04:27 That’s a kind of one-to-one map on the facilities side.
1:04:31 And then at school utilization, thinking about enrollment
1:04:35 overall.
1:04:36 We have developed specific strategic goals that are designed to
1:04:41 address each of those specific challenges,
1:04:44 optimizing resources, raising enrollment, renovating aging
1:04:47 facilities.
1:04:48 And then each of those strategic goals can be accomplished
1:04:51 potentially through potential strategies,
1:04:54 some of which are policy focused, things like boundary changes,
1:04:58 some of which are capital intensive,
1:05:00 like rebuilds or new facilities, and others that are hybrid that
1:05:04 involve elements of both.
1:05:06 So I’ll walk through kind of a number of stages of these, kind
1:05:09 of building up what has been our thinking
1:05:11 behind some of these potential strategies.
1:05:13 So this is kind of another view of the same diagram that was on
1:05:17 the previous slide.
1:05:18 So let’s take an individual school as an example.
1:05:21 We looked at all of the schools across the BPS system through
1:05:26 the lenses of these three pillars:
1:05:27 facilities, enrollment, and programs.
1:05:30 We’re looking at key challenges related to whether the facility
1:05:34 is in good or poor condition,
1:05:36 whether it’s over, well utilized, or underutilized from an
1:05:40 enrollment standpoint,
1:05:41 and then whether it has a high or low capture rate.
1:05:44 These map onto strategic goals around renovating aging schools,
1:05:48 optimizing resources, and raising enrollment.
1:05:52 And again, these are the policy focused, hybrid, and capital
1:05:56 intensive types of strategies.
1:06:00 And how this all kind of fits together.
1:06:04 So we have taken an approach of really data driven decision
1:06:09 making,
1:06:09 informed both by community input as well as kind of key
1:06:13 indicators describing the school challenges
1:06:15 that can help inform recommendations.
1:06:18 And so we’ll run through kind of what are the conditions in
1:06:22 which each of these types of strategies
1:06:23 might be applied or considered by the district.
1:06:26 So first off, new programs and choice options.
1:06:31 These are strategies that would aim to try to increase
1:06:35 enrollment and utilization through program expansion.
1:06:39 This can be about creating more choice options within the school
1:06:44 system
1:06:45 in an attempt to attract more students to the BPS system who are
1:06:49 currently outside of it.
1:06:50 One note here is that these strategies can also, you know,
1:06:53 creating new choice schools, for example,
1:06:56 can also draw students from other BPS traditional schools.
1:06:59 It should be kind of considered together with other strategies.
1:07:03 Boundary changes.
1:07:06 This is one set of strategies that can be used to adjust
1:07:09 boundaries between schools where there’s really high differences
1:07:13 in utilizations in neighboring schools.
1:07:16 An overutilized school immediately next to an underutilized
1:07:20 school.
1:07:20 Are there opportunities to better balance enrollment between
1:07:23 those two?
1:07:25 Great configuration changes.
1:07:28 Another potential strategy to look at both utilization changes
1:07:33 for schools within a consecutive levels within the same feeder
1:07:39 pattern where there are high differences in enrollment between
1:07:42 school levels.
1:07:43 Consolidations and repurposing for community benefit.
1:07:49 These are strategies that the district might consider in cases
1:07:53 where there are underutilized, many underutilized schools and
1:07:56 there aren’t other good strategies to balance those enrollments
1:08:00 through boundary changes or other mechanisms.
1:08:03 Are there opportunities to take a school that’s underutilized
1:08:08 and bring it into a new beneficial use for the district?
1:08:13 As well, I’m thinking about opportunities to rebuild and
1:08:17 consolidate.
1:08:17 Are there multiple older underutilized schools in poor condition
1:08:23 that are very close by to one another and where there would be
1:08:27 an opportunity to bring two schools together into a new school
1:08:32 building and providing a kind of better experience for schools
1:08:36 and for students in multiple schools.
1:08:39 As well, new capacity, as is mentioned, there are some areas of
1:08:45 real enrollment growth in the county where new capacity creating
1:08:49 new seats that will definitely still be something that the
1:08:52 district needs to consider in those areas that are expected to
1:08:56 experience real enrollment growth.
1:08:59 And then finally, opportunities to potentially rebuild schools
1:09:03 that are well utilized, have high capture rates but are really
1:09:07 aging and in poor condition.
1:09:09 So, I’ll turn it over to Sara Lee to speak about this more
1:09:13 specifically.
1:09:14 But, you know, all of these are kind of in the abstract.
1:09:18 You know, what are the types of strategies that we might use to
1:09:21 apply to the different types of challenges that we’re seeing.
1:09:24 All of this is constrained by fiscal realities.
1:09:27 And then we’ll talk a little bit about what are some of the
1:09:31 possible ways to implement this in conjunction with available
1:09:35 resources.
1:09:37 Thanks, dear.
1:09:38 So, this graphic is, you know, dollars over time, dollars that
1:09:48 you all collect over time.
1:09:51 And generally, the green bar reflects your impact fees, which is,
1:09:56 I would say, your most restrictive revenue source for capital
1:10:03 because it can only go towards new capacity.
1:10:05 So, even in these instances where we talk about a rebuild, and
1:10:12 that theoretically can be discussed as new capacity, it’s
1:10:16 replacement.
1:10:17 And if it’s replacing like for like, you know, we have a school,
1:10:22 they have 750 student stations and we’re rebuilding 750 student
1:10:28 stations, that would not qualify for the use of impact fees.
1:10:33 If you were rebuilding that 750 student school, and just for the
1:10:40 sake of an example, you were choosing to increase the capacity,
1:10:45 let’s just say 750 to 1,000.
1:10:49 That difference is new capacity.
1:10:52 And theoretically, that difference could be funded with impact
1:10:57 fees.
1:10:58 But it is, I would say, your most restrictive fund source from a
1:11:02 capital standpoint.
1:11:04 And of course, you’re dependent on the county commission to
1:11:07 impose it and collect it.
1:11:11 Purple reflects your other capital fund sources.
1:11:19 You’re, you know, we’ve talked about LCIF, which is that 1.5 mil
1:11:23 on folks property tax.
1:11:26 And Sue mentioned that 38 million a year is being used to pay
1:11:33 debt service.
1:11:35 So until that debt is paid off, you really don’t have much
1:11:41 available.
1:11:42 But the intent of this graphic shows you can see that that
1:11:46 purple revenue source begins to increase and become more
1:11:53 available once the debt decreases and is entirely paid off.
1:12:04 And so what does that mean as you look forward and what, what
1:12:11 could we do unless you’re, this, this graphic is just,
1:12:20 intended to show oh this money collects year after year after
1:12:25 year and then we
1:12:25 spend it so you see here shown fiscal year 32 that green bar
1:12:33 which is your
1:12:34 impact fee revenue goes down because you saved some money over
1:12:39 four years
1:12:39 impact fees and now you decided we’re gonna build a new school
1:12:43 and we’re gonna
1:12:44 pay for it with our impact fees now it goes down because you’re
1:12:47 using it up and
1:12:49 it’ll start climbing again and then you’ll have enough you’ll be
1:12:52 able to do
1:12:54 something else sue in her presentation said you know four
1:12:57 schools maybe five
1:12:58 you know depends on what you build depends what we’re collecting
1:13:03 and it
1:13:04 depends how much everything costs we’re not making any
1:13:07 projections today about
1:13:09 what anything is going to cost or if things will stay the same
1:13:13 but for the
1:13:14 purposes of illustration and then the same holds true for that
1:13:21 purple bar which
1:13:22 remember that purple bar is dependent in part on whether or not
1:13:30 you renew your
1:13:31 sales tax right because your sales tax can be available for any
1:13:36 of the things
1:13:38 that we’re discussing today and
1:13:43 certainly again is that that is paid off you have considerably
1:13:51 more money by which
1:13:52 you can look at your priorities and consider how you want to do
1:13:55 that so again the
1:13:58 purpose of this graph graphic is just to show you how this is a
1:14:03 pay-as-you-go kind of
1:14:06 scenario this is assuming no debt pay as you go we save up some
1:14:10 money then that
1:14:12 enables us to do something might change some of your priorities
1:14:17 and these things could
1:14:19 shift slightly but gives you a general idea and so overall what
1:14:25 does that mean well
1:14:27 maybe it means six rebuilds in whatever form you choose and
1:14:35 three quote unquote new schools
1:14:38 again just an idea because nothing stays constant but so that
1:14:48 you have an idea of what you can
1:14:49 consider as you move forward
1:14:51 great so with that as the kind of orders of magnitude in mind of
1:14:58 the you know scale of the types of capital
1:15:01 intensive strategies um that the board and the district might
1:15:04 consider um moving into um discussing um
1:15:08 specific potential strategies for consideration by the board and
1:15:12 and discussion and further conversation
1:15:13 um so we have worked with the district to assemble um uh
1:15:18 potential strategies into these five
1:15:21 different strategy um groups um strategy types um of k-8
1:15:26 conversions and seven through 12 um potential
1:15:29 conversions um as as sue mentioned earlier um these both would
1:15:34 include um you know grade configuration changes and
1:15:37 rebuilding and consolidating kind of bringing those two um
1:15:40 strategy types together um to think about uh new
1:15:44 uh configurations for grades and schools new capacity projects
1:15:48 new capacity um boundary adjustments boundary
1:15:51 changes um and then a kind of other category um that holds a
1:15:55 couple of specific um ideas um related to new
1:15:58 programs and choice options opportunities um for consolidations
1:16:01 and repurposing um and opportunities to rebuild
1:16:04 build um schools potentially um so i’ll move um into each of
1:16:09 these groupings specifically starting off um with
1:16:14 uh the possibility for thinking about um k-8 conversions and
1:16:18 whether the district um is interested in
1:16:20 moving um in a direction of having a greater number of k-8
1:16:23 schools um in the district um we have identified
1:16:27 through our work um a number of of different um kind of clusters
1:16:31 of schools um where the district might
1:16:34 consider this set of strategies um for further evaluation um so
1:16:40 these seven groupings of schools
1:16:42 um group a includes university park palm bay elementary school
1:16:48 port malabar elementary and stone middle school
1:16:52 and group b includes croton and creel elementary schools and
1:16:56 johnson middle school and group c includes
1:16:59 myla tropical and audubon elementary schools and jefferson
1:17:03 middle on merritt island
1:17:06 um c group c1 are the two choice schools um stevenson elementary
1:17:10 and edgwood junior senior high school
1:17:13 um that are proximate to that grouping um oak park elementary
1:17:17 and mims elementary together with
1:17:20 madison middle are in group d and then group e includes golf
1:17:24 view saturn and anderson elementary schools
1:17:28 as well as mcnair and kennedy middle schools and group f
1:17:32 includes india atlantic and gemini elementary
1:17:35 school and hoover middle school and so you’ll see that in kind
1:17:38 of overall across the schools um in this
1:17:41 full set of groupings um the utilization is about 65 percent so
1:17:47 many of these schools are schools on
1:17:49 the kind of lower end of the utilization spectrum in the
1:17:52 district um their capture rates um vary but the
1:17:56 average is 63 percent um and the average age of this set of
1:18:00 schools is 60 years old so these are some of
1:18:03 the you know older facilities um in the district um fci stands
1:18:07 for facility condition index um which
1:18:10 together with facility age um helps to kind of indicate the
1:18:13 condition of facilities yes really quick
1:18:16 absolutely before everybody who’s seeing this for the first time
1:18:19 it’s not our first time yeah is flipping
1:18:21 out yeah i just want to ask a question so like for example in
1:18:25 this first box yep you’re not necessarily
1:18:27 when we start getting the details looking at taking all three of
1:18:31 those elementary schools and a middle
1:18:33 school and combining just that those would be the elementary
1:18:35 schools that would be impacted by this
1:18:38 because that would be quite a large school so that’s just it’s
1:18:41 over by looking for the first time
1:18:43 we’re not talking about combining everything in the color block
1:18:45 into one school but then those would
1:18:47 that’s where they would draw from exactly exactly yeah so these
1:18:50 are you know potential groupings of
1:18:52 schools um that are approximate to one another um where there
1:18:56 are differences in enrollment um between them
1:18:59 and or schools um that are kind of underutilized or where there’s
1:19:02 excess um space that could accommodate
1:19:05 some of these so i’ll also say um and to reiterate as ms han has
1:19:09 mentioned earlier and we’ve said throughout
1:19:12 all of these this is the kind of first stage of sharing these
1:19:16 ideas every single one of these groupings
1:19:18 would need further in-depth study in-depth engagement with the
1:19:22 community to kind of learn is this feasible if
1:19:26 if so um where does it make the most sense um and kind of what
1:19:30 is the the interest um or not um in in these proposals
1:19:34 um so just kind of bringing this uh to a district-wide view just
1:19:42 to um emphasize that we’re looking at
1:19:44 schools really across across the district um where some of these
1:19:48 strategies might make sense um but between
1:19:51 schools at the middle and elementary level yeah and i just i
1:19:56 want to add one you know these strategies
1:20:02 and clusters they are only being proposed as a consideration
1:20:10 using the metrics that we’re identifying to you
1:20:15 today you know if any of the clusters were something that
1:20:20 warranted further study you know there’s other
1:20:24 disciplines besides facilities um in addition to our communities
1:20:30 that you would want to hear from
1:20:32 like how how would converting to a k impact impact the
1:20:36 curriculum that we currently offer in two separate
1:20:41 grade configurations you know what would that mean so and
1:20:45 special programs yeah absolutely um so moving to
1:20:52 the kind of second kind of grouping of potential strategies is
1:20:56 exploring whether expanding the number
1:20:58 of seven through 12 schools in the district um might be another
1:21:03 possible promising approach um to better
1:21:06 balancing enrollment um and addressing kind of facility
1:21:10 condition issues um across the county um so in
1:21:15 for kind of consideration as part of this potential strategy
1:21:19 grouping um we have five different pairs of
1:21:21 schools um that could merit further conversation as to whether
1:21:26 or not um developing a seven through 12 school
1:21:29 where in the place of um current middle and high school
1:21:32 configuration um might be a good idea um grouping a
1:21:36 includes satellite high school and delora middle school um
1:21:40 grouping b o galley um high school and johnson
1:21:43 middle school um grouping c astronaut high school and madison
1:21:48 middle school um group d palm bay high and stone
1:21:52 middle um c and e jefferson middle and merritt island high
1:21:57 school um so again in this grouping we see an
1:22:01 average facility age across all um 10 of these schools of 60
1:22:05 years these are some of the older um schools again
1:22:08 in the county um capture rates are generally higher the capture
1:22:12 rates um students opt to attend uh higher the
1:22:15 uh traditional bps schools for high school grades at a really
1:22:19 high rate that’s a a real um strength of the
1:22:21 county so see that the capture rates are generally speaking
1:22:25 higher um and that the average utilization
1:22:28 across all of the schools in this grouping um is at about 65 um
1:22:32 percent
1:22:38 um so looking at this geographically these are the kind of
1:22:43 potential clusters for um for a conversation
1:22:48 moving into our next kind of groupings of potential strategies
1:22:54 are um places where there might be
1:22:56 opportunities to address uh utilization challenges through
1:23:00 potential boundary adjustments um in this grouping we
1:23:04 have uh four potential um clusters that could be for considered
1:23:09 further um for possible boundary adjustments
1:23:12 between them um in group a and there’s a little bit of overlap
1:23:16 between group a and group b but group a
1:23:19 includes williams manatee quest and viera and sun tree
1:23:23 elementary schools um group b includes sun tree
1:23:27 sherwood longleaf croton and creel um group c includes port malabar
1:23:32 columbia jupiter sunrise turner and
1:23:34 west side um and d um riviera and lockmar and so looking within
1:23:38 these groups you can see i’m in
1:23:41 the middle column which looks at the utilization between schools
1:23:44 um for example between riviera and
1:23:47 lockmar riviera is at 105 percent of its permanent capacity
1:23:51 currently with its enrollment as of the fall
1:23:54 of this year whereas lockmar right next door is at 64 percent um
1:23:58 so this is an example and they both have
1:24:02 relatively um similar capture rates of 55 percent and 57 percent
1:24:07 um so this is a kind of situation where if
1:24:09 you adjusted the boundaries between those two schools you really
1:24:13 might be able to address um that over
1:24:16 utilization at riviera um by uh you know bringing some of those
1:24:20 students um into lockmar where there
1:24:23 seems to be available seats so that’s kind of the principle and
1:24:26 behind these groupings for boundary
1:24:27 adjustments um and again looking at where these are geographically
1:24:33 um and then the next grouping is um areas in the county um where
1:24:42 uh new capacity um bay is already
1:24:45 kind of under consideration um the the first grouping these
1:24:48 three schools um at the top bayside high
1:24:51 school westside elementary and sunrise elementary um already
1:24:54 have capacity plans underway um that sue and her
1:24:58 team have been working on over this past um year plus um as well
1:25:02 as the separate day school in the north
1:25:05 area so these are kind of new capacity projects that are
1:25:08 underway have already had um ongoing conversations
1:25:11 um and at the bottom uh portion of the chart um these are
1:25:15 schools that fall within areas that may have
1:25:18 future um development and so need to be monitored and kind of
1:25:22 have ongoing consideration as to whether
1:25:25 these are some of the areas that may need new capacity projects
1:25:29 um in the future um so looking at that
1:25:32 geographically um these are areas in the kind of southern
1:25:36 portion of the county more generally and but also
1:25:39 some capacity in in pinewood elementary and again the kind of
1:25:45 hatched areas are really this is a long
1:25:48 range strategic facilities plan these are further out um
1:25:51 possibilities but things that the district when
1:25:53 working on a long range plan um should be considering proactively
1:25:57 um and then the the last grouping um
1:26:01 is kind of a couple of um other strategies that fall um outside
1:26:05 of those four main groups um this
1:26:08 includes uh thinking about new programs um and in particular um
1:26:12 exploring opportunities at palm bay high
1:26:15 school for partnerships um with adult ed florida tech um and l3
1:26:19 harris um considering conversion
1:26:22 of the school to a technical center modeled after the clear lake
1:26:25 education center approach that has been
1:26:27 successful um as well in this group um a consideration of
1:26:32 possible um consolidations between um cape view
1:26:37 and roosevelt um as well as between um mcnair middle school and
1:26:41 kennedy middle school and these are both
1:26:45 conditions of um two adjacent schools at the same school level
1:26:49 um that both have low utilizations
1:26:52 um and older facilities um so are ones that the district might
1:26:56 consider um kind of outside of grade
1:26:59 configuration changes um finally kind of two other uh kind of
1:27:03 policy related and kind of district-wide
1:27:06 potential strategies that the the board and the district could
1:27:10 consider um first is uh kind of adopting a
1:27:13 strategy to try to phase out the use of portables um and replace
1:27:17 that with permanent capacity in schools
1:27:20 that have kind of the need for additional seats and then finally
1:27:24 is to think about a range of strategies
1:27:26 involving um on the curricular side and outreach bolstering
1:27:30 enrollment at early grades um to help kind of
1:27:33 bring families into the bps system in kindergarten and pre-k um
1:27:37 so that they stay within bps schools moving forward
1:27:40 um so i think with that i will turn it back over
1:27:45 so i’m just going to wrap up a little bit with some next steps
1:27:49 and also ask dare to talk about our
1:27:51 community engagement strategies but when we conclude our
1:27:55 presentation we’re really looking for some
1:27:57 guidance from the board some of ideas on priorities um thoughts
1:28:01 on some of the strategies thoughts on the
1:28:03 financial framework but i also do want to say this is not a an
1:28:06 exclusive list like there are other ideas we
1:28:09 we heard a few ideas at the community meeting last night
1:28:12 different grade configurations or some boundary
1:28:14 changes relating to mcnair like there are other strategies that
1:28:18 can be on the table we also look
1:28:20 at boundary changes annually so there may be some things that
1:28:23 come up annually as part of our normal
1:28:25 process but these are some of the like big rocks that i think
1:28:28 are worthy of consideration if we’re looking
1:28:30 at long-term planning for big impactful projects and so our next
1:28:36 step really is going to be around some
1:28:39 community engagement and i’m going to ask air to kind of give us
1:28:42 some detail on what we’ve got on deck
1:28:44 through wxy and thank you yeah so as part of the current scope
1:28:50 of work for wxy as part of the strategic
1:28:52 facilities plan are holding virtual district-wide community
1:28:58 meetings to hear from folks to share out
1:29:01 the the work that we’ve done and also hear from folks about
1:29:05 their priorities concerns and ideas for
1:29:08 the direction that the district should take so as you’ve seen
1:29:10 this work is at a high level it’s strategic
1:29:13 and district-wide not drilling down yet into kind of specific
1:29:16 issues and the really important individual
1:29:21 unique context of individual schools likewise the kind of
1:29:25 community engagement at this stage would be
1:29:27 big picture and district-wide some of the goals that we would
1:29:32 have for this engagement are that folks
1:29:35 come away with an understanding of this process and why it’s
1:29:38 important and that they come away with an
1:29:40 understanding of the challenges related to facilities that the
1:29:43 district faces and that folks have an
1:29:46 understanding of potential strategies on the table and that the
1:29:49 district and board might be able to
1:29:51 consider to address some of those challenges and then very
1:29:56 importantly that folks in the district-wide
1:29:59 community can provide input about potential strategies on the
1:30:03 table including their priorities concerns and
1:30:07 important context that they want the district and the board to
1:30:10 have about their school communities in
1:30:12 thinking about these decisions and then you know finally to kind
1:30:16 of understand the range of priorities
1:30:19 and concerns and that exist across the district so again the
1:30:22 kind of structure of these would be
1:30:25 district-wide meetings held virtually at times that work well
1:30:28 for families and engaged constituents in the district
1:30:33 and they can have polling and interactive facilitation group-wide
1:30:37 question and answer sessions fielded
1:30:40 potentially by wxy as well as members of the district and could
1:30:44 also include breakout group discussion so
1:30:47 chances for folks online to have smaller facilitated
1:30:50 conversations around the issues that have have come up
1:30:56 in tandem with the virtual community meetings that we can hold
1:31:02 as kind of as part of this stage of work
1:31:04 on the strategic facilities plan our team has a track record of
1:31:08 developing online tools and that help
1:31:12 to both communicate information through data about the district
1:31:16 utilization capture rate
1:31:19 all of the things that you’ve seen today on a school-by-school
1:31:21 level through a website where folks can look up their address
1:31:25 see which schools their zone to attend if they don’t already
1:31:28 know and learn kind of what are the kind of key
1:31:30 data points related to these challenges and what are some of the
1:31:34 potential strategies that could address those challenges
1:31:39 the website can include kind of comment function so we can hear
1:31:43 in a really direct way kind of survey input
1:31:46 on those specific strategies and can also include another round
1:31:50 of kind of community questionnaire
1:31:51 or another survey
1:31:53 so i had asked wxy to pause on the development of the community
1:32:00 engagement work
1:32:01 until we got through today so we want to customize our community
1:32:04 engagement program based on
1:32:06 the directions and guidance that we receive from the board today
1:32:09 but these are some of our next steps
1:32:11 from a staff perspective we’ll be doing kind of start with
1:32:15 community engagement working on those priorities
1:32:18 that the board has directed us to to look at and start to do
1:32:22 some analysis and then eventually we would
1:32:25 like to actually draft a strategic plan document so we’d like to
1:32:28 finish this is where we’re going over the
1:32:30 next you know 5 10 15 years concurrently we are working we and
1:32:34 facilities are working on the draft sales tax
1:32:39 renewal plan so that we can present that to the board and the
1:32:41 community coming up here in the next few
1:32:43 months so you all have plenty of time to think about that issue
1:32:47 coming up here next year and then draft a
1:32:50 resolution for implementation based on some of the guidance that
1:32:53 you will give us once you take a look at
1:32:55 the program of work that we will propose and then as you know
1:32:59 the millage also is renewed renewable in
1:33:03 2026 so there’s ongoing work in that arena as well so these are
1:33:06 kind of three big things that are
1:33:08 in the facilities realm or tangential to the facilities realm
1:33:13 that will be part of the board’s
1:33:14 consideration over the next couple of months so i appreciate the
1:33:17 extra time today i know it’s taken a
1:33:19 long time to go through all this but it’s pretty detailed and
1:33:22 significant work and has some big impacts
1:33:24 on our community and our future with facilities so thank you
1:33:28 very much and with that we are done with
1:33:31 with our presentation well i i would like to say thank you for
1:33:38 all the effort and everything that’s
1:33:38 going in i know we’re not done yet it was a lot i know we’ve had
1:33:43 these present and these presentations
1:33:45 on one-on-one uh for the first time for the public here it is it
1:33:50 is packed with information so we
1:33:52 appreciate it so and and to pick up where you started we do
1:33:56 appreciate suena and everything that
1:33:59 she’s done and she’s irreplaceable to this facility that’s for
1:34:03 sure so thank you sue uh board do we want
1:34:06 to start with any any questions no sure well first of all let me
1:34:10 echo mr trent’s comments i know it’s been
1:34:13 a lot of work and we very much appreciate it something that
1:34:15 probably should have been
1:34:16 sue inherited it but probably should have been done a long time
1:34:19 ago and hopefully we’ll never have to
1:34:21 do it again to this extent so um would you like us to make
1:34:24 comments as far as the overall presentation
1:34:27 and kind of what we see for direction yes sir we’d be interested
1:34:30 to hear what your thoughts are on
1:34:32 all of these topics okay well in no particular order um i would
1:34:37 like to ask the staff to explore
1:34:39 our rebuilding stone middle school um and the k-8 conversion
1:34:43 model with university park and in that
1:34:46 i’d i know that nobody would like to take on new debt but i
1:34:49 would also like to explore all funding
1:34:50 options including financing possibilities um that’s first and
1:34:56 foremost for me number two um i know it’s
1:35:00 painful but i think it’d be worth exploring the boundary
1:35:02 adjustment for riviera and lockmore that seems to
1:35:05 make sense for new capacity i just had a quick question because
1:35:09 i noticed there was nothing i
1:35:11 mentioned it in our last meeting about the potential growth out
1:35:14 to in west of west melbourne which is
1:35:17 going to be melbourne um is that there’s nothing that’s imminent
1:35:21 for the next 20 years it seems to be
1:35:24 that we need to be looking at so we it will be as part of kind
1:35:28 of that southwest palm bay
1:35:31 area both of that area is growing in palm bay and in west melbourne
1:35:36 and melbourne that whole corridor
1:35:38 basically along the parkway and the timing of that will depend
1:35:42 on whether that’s faster than what’s going
1:35:44 on at the st john’s heritage parkway interchange kind of the
1:35:47 southeast section so those two areas in general
1:35:51 yes so what you’re asking is included in in what we’re looking
1:35:55 at okay i just i just didn’t notice
1:35:57 anything that was really prevalent in that study about it so
1:36:00 that’s why i was asking um and then the
1:36:03 last thing was um i think it would be smart to explore
1:36:06 opportunities at palm bay high school just to know
1:36:09 what our options are um i do i love what’s going on at clear
1:36:12 lake and the plan there but i do think that
1:36:15 for the cte portion but i think that that’s um for p for people
1:36:19 on the south brevard area getting up to
1:36:22 clear lake is going to be a challenge so i think if we could use
1:36:25 palm bay high school more effectively
1:36:27 for people in south brevard i think that’d be very wise and
1:36:31 those will be my comments for now
1:36:35 okay wow and i this is not our first time seeing any of this but
1:36:48 put it all together
1:36:49 it was a lot and i echo the thanks to all of you i’m just going
1:36:53 to go in order where i was dog
1:36:55 earing things um if i can find my dog ears excuse me because you
1:37:01 wanted us to talk about financial
1:37:03 things and i had made a couple notes so i’m not far back enough
1:37:07 um so
1:37:08 understanding our limitations and everything i just wanted to
1:37:13 add one more potential source of income
1:37:16 um that’s one-time funds if we go forward with some of these
1:37:20 options we will have potential
1:37:23 sales of property i know sometimes when we close buildings we we
1:37:26 don’t sell it we repurpose it we
1:37:28 turn it into the next office space but um if if we move forward
1:37:33 with for example consolidating
1:37:35 kpu and roosevelt that is beach side property and there’s a
1:37:40 potential there there’s not too many
1:37:43 places where we can do that but the other one that came to mind
1:37:46 is if we do the consolidation of the new k8
1:37:49 model with university park and stone then we’ve got university
1:37:52 park property right there in the backyard
1:37:54 of florida tech you know so it’s not going to raise 50 million
1:37:58 dollars potentially but that’s that is
1:38:00 another small source of income to help subsidize some of these
1:38:04 projects i believe and we have since
1:38:08 i’ve been on the board been selling bits and pieces including
1:38:10 some property that’s not usable for
1:38:12 anything that we would do in different corners and thank you to
1:38:15 your team who’ve been able to help us
1:38:17 accomplish that a million here a million there it it helped in
1:38:20 the uh facilities budget so but it’s
1:38:24 thought of that as another small thing not enough to build a
1:38:26 whole school but it’ll help
1:38:28 um i just wanted to address one thing on the facilities
1:38:32 assessment dashboard i was on the board in 2019
1:38:35 when you guys used a third party to do that and i asked that
1:38:38 question of um sue and just said hey are
1:38:40 we’re going to do that again and first of all i very much
1:38:44 appreciate um after walking through that
1:38:46 with me that that we’re doing this in-house because one it was
1:38:49 it was appropriate to do that was the
1:38:51 right thing to do at the time because it was overwhelming and we
1:38:53 hadn’t done it um but considering that
1:38:56 our facility staff has been doing that to constantly update it
1:39:01 and not wait till now 2025 and let’s do it all
1:39:03 again but you guys have been steadily so that we know at in real
1:39:08 time what are the state what is the state
1:39:10 of all of our stuff um i very much appreciate that and so since
1:39:15 since that has become the norm now for
1:39:17 us to regularly update our our things from playgrounds to
1:39:22 basketball you know literally the basketball goals
1:39:25 not just the courts i mean everything you know scoreboards
1:39:29 things like that you know we’re doing
1:39:31 it regularly i very much appreciate that because it’s a cost
1:39:33 savings but it’s also more effective in
1:39:35 doing the work that you guys are doing so i just wanted to give
1:39:38 some kudos to that especially since
1:39:39 i was one to ask the question why aren’t we doing that again um
1:39:43 all right so when it comes to these
1:39:45 options um so i didn’t really have any more feedback on the
1:39:49 funding side of things i i do as much as
1:39:52 you’ve heard me um sue share over the years i want us to borrow
1:39:56 as little as possible and pay it off as
1:39:58 quickly as possible um the schools that we can fund with the
1:40:03 like we did for the middle school with the
1:40:05 line of credit if we have that possibility for a project i would
1:40:09 love that um i when i got on the
1:40:11 board we had 400 million dollars worth of debt i’m very proud
1:40:13 that we’re down to 300 million dollars and
1:40:15 actually under 300 million dollars of debt i don’t like the idea
1:40:18 of us turning around and adding another
1:40:19 300 million dollars of debt to build several schools really
1:40:22 quickly but if you know if we have got to
1:40:26 do some of this work and we don’t have another way to fund it um
1:40:30 i am cautiously open to what sources
1:40:34 we might have to explore just because there are some things we’re
1:40:37 just not going to be able to wait i
1:40:38 don’t like the way idea of waiting 10 years before we start the
1:40:41 bulk of this work um because i think at that
1:40:45 point some of the consequences of our loss enrollment will be um
1:40:50 too severe to recover from all right so
1:40:54 of the the ideas i am also in favor of the k-8 conversions
1:40:59 particularly and i i don’t know that
1:41:01 you prioritize these in order but i think that i think that that
1:41:05 one you put on the top with the
1:41:06 university park stone area if i could just interject to say they’re
1:41:09 absolutely not prioritized in order and
1:41:11 that okay that should be you know that’s part of the
1:41:13 conversation okay well it’s prioritized for
1:41:15 me the same way as mr thomas and not just because it’s uh my
1:41:19 area i think that makes a lot of sense
1:41:21 stone you know the facility team has done great work but i was
1:41:24 just talking to mr brian every time you
1:41:26 walk on that campus you just get the feeling this is an old
1:41:29 building and you can’t put enough paint on it
1:41:33 to make it look like not an old building and if we built that
1:41:36 shiny new object
1:41:38 there that was a k-8 to serve that community i actually love
1:41:43 that idea i think to get the kind
1:41:45 of technology updates that an old building just can’t support
1:41:48 very well even though again our technology
1:41:51 team has done a great job we’ve done the best job we can with a
1:41:53 70 year old building and i will be so
1:41:55 happy i hope we get invited to the 70 anniversary even though it’s
1:41:58 not in district five make sure i get
1:41:59 an invitation mr thomas to the 70 anniversary next next year um
1:42:03 but i i love that idea i think it will
1:42:05 serve that community well and of of the ones on that list that’s
1:42:10 the one that i um i think would be
1:42:14 most beneficial looking at the capture rates looking at the age
1:42:16 looking at the utilization
1:42:20 um for the 712 conversions again you said you didn’t put them in
1:42:24 priority but to me the top idea is the
1:42:26 best idea um the satellite delara because those are the only two
1:42:31 that i’m aware of that are literally
1:42:33 right next to each other share a parking lot satellite and delara
1:42:37 satellite is has been close to capacity
1:42:39 my whole time on the board and delara now with the new middle
1:42:43 school is under it’s the easiest thing for
1:42:46 them to share spaces and if delara can take some of the um
1:42:50 pressure off of satellite because they’re you
1:42:53 know we may have to move some fences and move some things around
1:42:55 but i think that would make sense
1:42:57 to do sooner rather than later if they’re amenable um to it as
1:43:01 the community is so i like that idea
1:43:03 um boundary adjustments um i you know i and all of us were like
1:43:09 i hesitate to speak too much to areas
1:43:11 that are not my areas and not just because my district because i
1:43:14 mean i’ve lived in west melbourne
1:43:15 for almost 18 years and i know the south area really well um and
1:43:19 i know the north area and the central
1:43:21 area just mainly from my time on the school board but i do feel
1:43:24 like that viera area you’re talking
1:43:25 about all a schools talking about some balancing and i’m sure
1:43:28 susan will probably have some more to say
1:43:30 about that but i think some slight adjustments up there when in
1:43:33 my time on the board quest before we built
1:43:35 viera elementary was bursting at the seams and lots of things we
1:43:40 were doing to try to fit so many kids
1:43:43 into one building it makes sense to kind of make those
1:43:45 adjustments up there because they’re all newer
1:43:48 buildings newer ish 20 years since you like a new building but
1:43:51 it’s newer ish i also think that the
1:43:54 riviera lockmar i think that would be one that the community
1:43:58 down that is exactly my area actually my
1:44:01 neighborhood zone for riviera riviera i think that is an area
1:44:03 that could um that the community would be
1:44:06 willing to look at um again i don’t speak for everybody in the
1:44:09 palm bay area but i think the
1:44:10 community will be willing to look at adjustments from riviera to
1:44:13 lockmar and then also all those that
1:44:15 you have listed in palm bay from port malabart down to west side
1:44:18 to make some adjustments to schools
1:44:20 that again things that the parents look at just being honest and
1:44:24 transparent a lot of c schools in that
1:44:26 group and if you’re moving from one c school to another c school
1:44:28 i don’t and because the area of palm
1:44:30 that area of palm bay so many new people there aren’t the
1:44:33 traditions like i went to this school
1:44:35 my mother went to this school my grandmother went to this school
1:44:37 you don’t have that so much in palm
1:44:38 bay one because the schools weren’t around then but also because
1:44:41 people are in and out so much of
1:44:43 that area i think i think that area i could be wrong but i think
1:44:46 that area will be a little
1:44:47 we’ve tried not to do boundary adjustments and mishan has been
1:44:50 really careful not to do but i think this
1:44:52 area would take some of those better um and then as far as the
1:44:59 other things um and i i want to give
1:45:04 this the time that it needs um i think the cape u roosevelt
1:45:09 consolidation makes sense i mentioned that
1:45:12 already i think that i think that makes sense and there are i’m
1:45:15 going to mention this because it also is
1:45:18 relevant to the next thing i’m going to say um having done some
1:45:22 demographic sat in some demographic study
1:45:25 presentations even including in dc just in the fall um they
1:45:29 talked about the graying of our communities
1:45:32 and different areas and the truth is we are we have certain
1:45:35 parts of our community that are graying
1:45:38 and the so it’s not that an area like cape view it’s not there’s
1:45:43 it’s not that we’re losing kids
1:45:45 in that school to other schools there just aren’t as many kids
1:45:49 in the community and so the population
1:45:51 is shrinking in that area not because it’s a bad school it’s
1:45:53 just there aren’t as many kids in the
1:45:55 neighborhood because the population get all their kids graduated
1:45:59 and they they’ve moved on and there
1:46:01 aren’t as many young families in that area that have so it makes
1:46:04 sense in that area in particular
1:46:07 with the potential upside again of potentially having some
1:46:10 property um to sell um
1:46:13 the i do wanted to add when we talk about the phasing out of use
1:46:19 of portables i want to i just
1:46:21 going to mention this out here um west shore is a completely
1:46:25 stable population they have the same
1:46:27 number of students year after year after year because they have
1:46:29 a limited population
1:46:30 they also have a lot of portables i’ve already said that to miss
1:46:34 miss hen but i if we’re talking about
1:46:35 that i think that we need to look at at doing something for west
1:46:38 shore because we shouldn’t be
1:46:40 using portables for a school that has a permanent number of
1:46:44 students and so if we can do something
1:46:47 to you know if we have funding to put a again one of the really
1:46:52 old campuses um i don’t think it’s
1:46:55 on here anywhere uh in our presentation but it’s an old campus
1:46:58 the old central junior high
1:47:00 um for people who were here have been here way longer than i’ve
1:47:04 been here know that
1:47:05 um i think we need to get that done at some point in the long-term
1:47:09 plan even if it’s not in the next
1:47:11 couple years all right i saved mcnair for last um but i because
1:47:15 we have so many people that have been
1:47:18 reaching out to us we’ve got so many people here today let me
1:47:20 just share thank my thanks for you guys and
1:47:22 your your participation i want to i want to just again this is
1:47:26 not final conversation but i’m just
1:47:28 going to be completely transparent and share with you guys and
1:47:31 also with the community who may be
1:47:33 watching or who are in the building my initial thoughts on this
1:47:36 and i have done some look at different
1:47:39 aspects of it um so i want to address some of the concerns that
1:47:43 people have talked about one is teachers
1:47:46 losing their jobs i can i can pretty much guarantee that every
1:47:50 teacher if we were to close a school
1:47:52 any school in this county we would have a job for them somewhere
1:47:55 else and i give this as an example
1:47:57 we’re closing the alcs i think there were 31 staff that we were
1:48:01 that we were um needed to relocate
1:48:04 and i have not heard any doubt that all 31 of those staff and i’m
1:48:08 getting a thumbs up from the back table
1:48:09 there we’re able to find a spot for that i just checked um
1:48:14 according to um my what i was able to
1:48:16 find we have 59 total staff members at mcnair um i i just want
1:48:20 to lay those fears i’m not saying we’re
1:48:23 i’ve made final decisions or certainly the board hasn’t made a
1:48:25 final decision but my thoughts we’ve
1:48:26 got 59 staff members that i’m i’m sure we can relocate we are
1:48:29 always in need of more assistant
1:48:31 principals and principals always need of teachers always in need
1:48:35 of ias those people will find a spot
1:48:37 especially if we’re consolidating because then we’re combining
1:48:39 things um i want to thank um alex
1:48:41 goings for reaching out to me and where i had a great
1:48:44 conversation with him last week um to address
1:48:46 some of these concerns we talked about academic process progress
1:48:49 educational opportunities um long-term
1:48:52 success of our students those are some things that were in the
1:48:54 kind of copy-paste emails that we were
1:48:56 getting all week long but they’re worth addressing i will tell
1:48:59 you that my biggest concern with us with
1:49:02 with the mcnair mcnair situation is i have serious concerns
1:49:05 about schools with tiny populations
1:49:07 because the truth is the smaller the population the fewer
1:49:11 opportunities that those schools have
1:49:13 the current size of mcnair according to our october census was
1:49:18 262 a school with 262 students a
1:49:21 middle school with 262 students cannot afford a band director
1:49:27 choir director orchestra director these are
1:49:30 things that are important to me these opportunities and i’ve
1:49:32 actually people somebody shared that they
1:49:34 used to be a fine arts hub i guarantee you they are not now they
1:49:38 are not now because the small the
1:49:40 size that they’ve been some of our schools that shrunk down had
1:49:43 you can’t in my time on the board
1:49:45 i’ve only known one school that had one person who could do band
1:49:48 orchestra choir it was the wonderful
1:49:50 director who was at palm bay high school last year but he only
1:49:52 did it for a year and then he left another
1:49:53 opportunity it is very hard to find someone who is willing to do
1:49:57 all three much less able to do all
1:49:59 three and do them with excellence that’s just one thing because
1:50:01 music is my world but when you
1:50:03 talk about cte programs you talk about technology programs a
1:50:07 school that’s that tiny cannot support
1:50:09 the many opportunities that the larger schools can so i’m just
1:50:12 being completely transparent if we
1:50:15 had the opportunity to consolidate two middle schools that are
1:50:19 smaller size for the one that was
1:50:21 suggested was mcnair and kennedy then we can get them back up to
1:50:24 a population because kennedy also
1:50:26 lost some of their music teachers this year we get them back up
1:50:29 to the size where they can support
1:50:31 not just music but art and cte programs and all those other
1:50:35 opportunities that it’s really hard for
1:50:38 small schools to do and this is speaking as a person who has
1:50:41 very large middle schools in my area and
1:50:43 i know the opportunities that they have because they are so big
1:50:46 like central and southwest and even stone
1:50:48 so i that is my biggest concern is small so if there’s a way to
1:50:52 get mcnair bigger
1:50:54 then maybe but i don’t think the things that the people are have
1:50:59 been suggested to us oh let’s create
1:51:01 more programming well we did that we’ve also done at palm bay
1:51:05 high school and palm bay high school has more
1:51:07 cte programs than any other high school and yet the population
1:51:09 has not grown um so i’m not looking at
1:51:15 just age of the school on the expense of the school it is old
1:51:18 and it is expensive but it’s not the only
1:51:21 old and expensive school so i’m trying to but the size of it is
1:51:24 what bothers me because it limits
1:51:27 opportunities for students and i just took a look because i
1:51:29 think one thing that’s happening at mcnair is
1:51:31 also the graying the aging of the community when i looked at our
1:51:34 from to chart that you guys send us
1:51:37 we passed it in our last board meeting and any public can look
1:51:39 at that on our march 25th agenda
1:51:41 it was the student accommodation plan there’s a chart that shows
1:51:45 where kids go from different schools
1:51:47 mcnair has population right now 262 191 of those are from mcnair
1:51:52 zone they live in mcnair zone
1:51:54 only 45 students are going to charter schools from mcnair i say
1:51:59 mcnair because
1:52:00 only because it’s relatively it’s not that it’s not that if they’re
1:52:03 all leaking away to charter
1:52:04 schools 45 students are going to charter schools from mcnair 65
1:52:07 are going to other bps schools
1:52:11 but guess what 40 of those 65 are going to kennedy so 40 are
1:52:16 already going to kennedy
1:52:18 and so if you take that out only 25 are going to other schools
1:52:22 so what i’m seeing is even if
1:52:24 mcnair captured all their kids back they’re still going to be
1:52:27 the tiniest of our middle schools so that
1:52:29 small number is not going to necessarily go away um as far as mcnair
1:52:33 i said they only have 191
1:52:36 one they get the rest of their kids um from uh 71 schools that
1:52:43 are zoned for other 52 of them from
1:52:46 coco so 52 of the middle schoolers from coco actually zone out
1:52:50 of coco into mcnair um the next small just
1:52:53 for reference the next smallest middle school we have middle
1:52:56 school population is coco beach which
1:52:58 is a junior senior high so we don’t see that impact the next
1:53:00 smallest is madison which is 446.
1:53:03 so close to 200 students more than what mcnair has total so i’m
1:53:07 just going to go back and i’ve
1:53:08 looked at the trends from 2010 all the way to 2024 mcnair has
1:53:12 steadily dropped despite all the things
1:53:15 that we’ve done again i think it goes back to the aging
1:53:16 population of the community there just aren’t as
1:53:18 many kids in the community as there used to be um they’ve also
1:53:22 and and this is why this is one of
1:53:24 the reasons why it’s important i’m sorry i’m taking my time this
1:53:26 is a lot of information one of the
1:53:28 reasons why it’s important is when a school is so small we had a
1:53:31 rock star principal up there i’m
1:53:33 not saying the principal now is he’s a rock star too but we had
1:53:35 a rock star principal a couple years ago
1:53:37 at mcnair and she and her staff worked their tails off and got mcnair
1:53:43 um up to an a in 2018
1:53:46 and the very next year they dropped down to a c same principal
1:53:50 same teachers some of the same students
1:53:53 but let me tell you one of the things that happened was when you
1:53:56 are so small if you have you can have
1:53:58 all this progress but if you have just a few students who don’t
1:54:01 do well it affects the school grade more
1:54:05 so that’s a problem with having such a small school one of the
1:54:08 problems of having such small school
1:54:09 another one so they have continued to their last couple grades
1:54:12 have been a b a c and a c but again
1:54:14 the smaller the school the more just a few students not doing
1:54:18 well has a detrimental effect and that is
1:54:21 so there’s and i it’s not because we haven’t put money in it i
1:54:24 checked on that we put four million
1:54:26 dollars of our of our um cell surtax plan into mcnair over the
1:54:32 last uh however many years we’ve had the
1:54:34 surtax so that’s kind of a i mean it’s big picture i i just
1:54:38 think whatever the solution is
1:54:40 and maybe there’s a possibility we pull some coco kids um yeah
1:54:43 because that’s been presented to me
1:54:45 what if we pull the coco middle schoolers out of coco and put
1:54:48 them in mcnair that’s a possibility
1:54:50 except you know and i i don’t think some people say oh then it’s
1:54:53 a problem because most of the mcnair
1:54:55 kids all go to rocklage so you’d have kids going some to rocklist
1:54:57 some to coco i don’t have a problem
1:54:59 with that so much because for example central in my area half
1:55:01 the kids go to heritage and half the kids
1:55:03 go to mill high they they say goodbye at the end of eighth grade
1:55:06 and and it’s not the worst thing in
1:55:07 the world they can they can deal with that but the problem the
1:55:10 the one downside of that is coco
1:55:12 currently has 1435 students if we take all the middle schoolers
1:55:16 out we’re taking 480 students out and
1:55:18 that means coco will be less than a thousand students which is
1:55:21 not impossible but we have some nice shiny new
1:55:23 buildings that we put on coco’s campus to get some programs and
1:55:26 i think then we have a utilization factor
1:55:28 there not saying i’m opposed to it but that would be part of the
1:55:32 things that we have to factor in
1:55:34 so i just again i i just want to be as transparent with with the
1:55:37 community as possible about all these
1:55:39 issues it’s not as simple as we’ve got an old building we don’t
1:55:42 want to spend the money there’s a
1:55:43 lot more problems from my end that i have with having such a
1:55:47 small school and i’m happy um i i
1:55:49 this is one thing i will commit board and the community i have i
1:55:52 drive past mcnair all the time
1:55:54 when i go up to my children’s hunger project meetings but i will
1:55:57 commit that i will i haven’t actually been
1:55:59 on the campus i will be on the campus and then before the end of
1:56:02 the school year to make sure that i’ve
1:56:03 had eyes on and conversations with the people at the campus
1:56:06 because i want to make sure that i see
1:56:08 for myself and hear for myself um what’s going on the campus so
1:56:12 i commit to do that thank you mr
1:56:15 chair for giving me that extra time without tapping the table
1:56:18 absolutely i did not have the timer set
1:56:20 that’s good that’s awesome okay all right um i’m gonna try to
1:56:25 make up some time and just be quick
1:56:28 here a couple things that i have in that i’m thinking i think
1:56:30 that it would be worth the district’s
1:56:32 effort to potentially petition the commission to look at an
1:56:37 impact fee study to generate more revenue
1:56:40 so that i would like to ask for that if the board supports it i’m
1:56:42 not opposed to the consolidation of
1:56:44 the k-8 conversion i think one of the issues that i have though
1:56:47 is i don’t have the enrollment numbers
1:56:48 for each of these so i don’t know if the difference that we’re
1:56:51 talking about in a school could be are
1:56:52 we talking about a school for a thousand students we’re talking
1:56:54 about school for two thousand
1:56:55 students the k-8 conversion might be we might look at a
1:56:57 different scenario if we’re talking about a
1:57:00 variation of a thousand students because that’s obviously a much
1:57:02 larger school that will need to be
1:57:04 built and far more expensive so i don’t i’m not opposed to the
1:57:08 the uh up stone i think that’s probably the
1:57:11 best case scenario based on what this says provided that there’s
1:57:15 not a huge variation in students you know
1:57:18 there um i again do not support going in debt over this so for
1:57:23 me i personally i’m that’s kind of
1:57:26 where i land i like the line of credit that we did that was very
1:57:29 unique um one of the things i’ll say
1:57:30 you know i do want to talk about the mcnair issue because i have
1:57:34 felt extreme frustration since last
1:57:36 week when this hit the internet and i’m going where is this
1:57:39 coming from i didn’t know we were closing
1:57:41 mcnair how is the internet have this right and so obviously this
1:57:45 is the rumor mill that ran wild um but then
1:57:47 i’m looking at this and i’m like going okay somebody somewhere
1:57:50 that last slide that says the
1:57:52 consolidation that’s probably where it came from right like this
1:57:55 the ideas of potential i that
1:57:56 things that we could do um we have to give mcnair a little bit
1:58:00 of time in all fairness we just opened
1:58:02 a brand new middle school board so for us to look at mcnair the
1:58:05 very next year and be like hey i don’t
1:58:07 know you know the enrollment’s down give them a little bit of
1:58:09 time you might see some students that
1:58:11 transferred from mcnair to the new middle school that might say
1:58:14 you know what i really miss
1:58:16 the facility you know whatever i had going on over at mcnair so
1:58:19 for me i i have no interest
1:58:21 whatsoever at touching that school right now there has been a
1:58:25 lot a lot of changes in that community
1:58:27 losing a hospital losing i mean we cannot it’s just i don’t
1:58:31 think that’s the wisest thing for
1:58:32 this board to do i think we need to wait a little while and see
1:58:35 what happens as far as stabilizing out
1:58:37 the student enrollment there i i had a question and i don’t know
1:58:40 this might be an absolutely crazy idea
1:58:42 but we keep talking k8 or 7 through 12 is there a potential to
1:58:48 do a like maybe we took all the
1:58:51 seventh graders from coco high and put them at mcnair what does
1:58:55 that look like is that a possibility
1:58:58 and then make coco high 8 through 12 to not disrupt is there
1:59:02 anything that prevents us from doing such a
1:59:05 thing like that i don’t know i’m just that i’m just throwing out
1:59:10 an idea of something that’s some
1:59:12 very unconventional because we always talk k8 or we talk 7
1:59:15 through 12 but we don’t ever look at can
1:59:17 we break those grade spans up any differently um so maybe
1:59:21 something worth worth um exploring the rezoning
1:59:25 i think is also another possible option um to eliminate a
1:59:28 possible you know school closure i think that
1:59:30 that’s the best interest if we’re looking at some of our other
1:59:33 schools that are over utilized um it makes
1:59:35 sense to obviously spread things out and you know one of the
1:59:38 funny things about brevard county obviously
1:59:40 the population moves around right so brevard county became very
1:59:44 big because of the space center so
1:59:46 obviously like merritt island coco beach those areas titusville
1:59:48 had a ton of growth all at one time
1:59:50 so we built schools to accommodate the capacity that we were
1:59:53 seeing come in well now industry has changed
1:59:56 people have moved we see things going on you know vieira i’ve
1:59:59 lived here so long before vieira was
2:00:02 vieira so like i know you know it was farmland out here there
2:00:05 was nothing so it’s just this is just kind
2:00:07 of what happens and it’s it’s hard it’s tough to make a tough
2:00:10 decision and say hey we got to look at this
2:00:12 as a overall but i’m of the mindset of let’s figure out how do
2:00:15 we drum up more enrollment um let’s look at
2:00:17 can we disperse enrollment from schools that are over overfilled
2:00:21 and put them possibly in some of
2:00:23 these schools that are underutilized but i think as far as mcnair
2:00:26 goes we need to give that a minute
2:00:28 because it we just opened up a new school and so i think you
2:00:30 need to let the dust settle from that
2:00:32 for for a little bit and then we may have to have this
2:00:34 conversation in a year or two and look at it
2:00:36 again and say okay where are we at um has anything stabilized
2:00:39 out i think the community is aware now
2:00:41 that hey we need to drive enrollment up um we want to make sure
2:00:44 that whatever we’re doing if we can do
2:00:46 something better give us an idea we love it we want to you know
2:00:48 we want to make it better so um and the
2:00:51 internet is not always accurate so again i’m just i’m gonna get
2:00:54 off my soapbox about that because i
2:00:55 was very frustrated last week when i saw this at the internet
2:00:58 and i’m going what like i’m on the board
2:01:00 i haven’t heard this and i’m going i didn’t know we were closing
2:01:02 a school what is happening and we’re
2:01:04 having community meetings and i’m going huh like this is just so
2:01:07 i think we had the uh the cart before the
2:01:08 horse a little bit on this one so i apologize for all of the the
2:01:11 high emotions that come from
2:01:13 the potential of closing a school that’s gonna that’s gonna
2:01:16 obviously make everybody upset so
2:01:17 um but moving forward can if you could just tell me the
2:01:20 enrollment numbers so that i know if we’re
2:01:22 talking about a k-8 school i like the up stone idea but making
2:01:26 sure that the enrollment numbers aren’t
2:01:28 varying by you know a significant amount that would cause the
2:01:31 cost of the school to be much higher so
2:01:33 i think that’s all that i have sorry thank you um one of the
2:01:38 first things i wanted to say is sue thank
2:01:40 you so much when we spoke in this about 2016 2017 we talked
2:01:45 about the k-8 model for new construction
2:01:48 and stuff like that and just so that i may be able to say to
2:01:51 everybody in this in this um conversation
2:01:54 our largest um deficit in education is in seventh grade when the
2:01:58 students leave sixth grade and they go to
2:02:00 seventh grade that’s when we get hit the most so the k-8 model
2:02:04 adjusts that and fixes that achievement
2:02:07 gap for us and so it was when we first we first were going to
2:02:11 build uh viera elementary school
2:02:14 i kept screaming to build it as a k-8 because it because i knew
2:02:18 that eventually we would build another
2:02:21 middle school and i wanted to hedge off some of the things but
2:02:23 it’s an it’s a model that works
2:02:25 um if you look back across the country at any achievement model
2:02:30 of um k-8s they outperform the
2:02:33 elementary and middle school partners very high it’s almost like
2:02:37 between 15 and 25 depending on the area
2:02:39 and it gets to a um it allows the kids to grow inside that
2:02:44 school the back side to that is is that
2:02:48 anytime you get to an elementary school i think the achievement
2:02:50 levels is right around 750 students
2:02:53 you get above 750 students you start to see decreases in
2:02:57 achievement with certain students
2:02:59 you start to see decreases in achievement inside of um students
2:03:02 with disabilities students with 504
2:03:05 plans for students with that that a large uh school is not is
2:03:09 not good for them you know what i mean
2:03:11 they just don’t adapt to it so there’s definitely benefits and
2:03:16 negatives to you know k-8s larger schools
2:03:18 and everything else i’ve spent a lot of time across the state of
2:03:21 florida in a lot of different school
2:03:23 districts and i’ll tell you i’ve walked into districts that have
2:03:26 made the decision to move in this
2:03:28 direction to consolidate elementary schools to middle schools to
2:03:31 create k-8s that have two three thousand
2:03:33 people inside of it or you know 1200 to 1500 to 18 and it’s a
2:03:38 different feel it’s not a community feel
2:03:41 and i think that that’s something that we need to take a look at
2:03:44 i do appreciate xyz coming in you made
2:03:46 all of your your um your evaluations based upon uh you know what
2:03:52 i mean um capacity and age those are two
2:03:56 huge factors when we have to deal with fiscal responsibility as
2:03:59 a district but one thing you
2:04:00 guys didn’t do is achievement levels and community engagements
2:04:04 for instance i’ve seen across the state
2:04:06 where in some instances somebody will put up a school close the
2:04:10 school put it up for sale and then the
2:04:12 sale of the school because it’s such a large property will
2:04:14 impact the neighborhoods in such a negative way
2:04:17 that it becomes a a pretty bad situation you know what i mean so
2:04:20 there’s a lot of other factors that
2:04:22 our board has to take a look at i will say um i there’s a lot
2:04:26 that we can do and we talked about
2:04:28 it inside of my district between rezonings and everything else
2:04:31 but what i want to try to focus on is
2:04:34 i want to try to take a look at k-8 conversion research so
2:04:37 before like miss wright was saying
2:04:41 before we decide to make a move on any of these or light our
2:04:45 district on fire let’s do our research
2:04:47 how many times have school districts moved from having an
2:04:51 elementary school and a middle school
2:04:53 converted them and what was the achievement differences i think
2:04:56 we could take a look at
2:04:57 that i have not seen that as anything out here um it should be a
2:05:00 positive moving into that but let’s
2:05:03 make sure the other thing i would like to do is is look into
2:05:06 have because many of the school districts
2:05:09 many people may not know but our sixth grade is we are one of
2:05:13 only two school districts it was clay
2:05:15 county i’m not even sure if we’re the last one now but as of a
2:05:17 couple years ago that has sixth grade in
2:05:19 elementary school that’s why we see such a big drop in seventh
2:05:22 grade i think when you have certain areas
2:05:25 like this like a mcnair or something you could actually move the
2:05:28 sixth grade into the middle school
2:05:30 right um the argument that would be is i would like to see where
2:05:33 that’s been done before and what the
2:05:35 conversion research would show meaning if we did move the sixth
2:05:39 grade into the middle school did that
2:05:41 actually help or did like now the sixth graders just end up
2:05:43 dropping off because of the achievement and
2:05:45 stuff like that we have to be ready if we’re going to make
2:05:48 decisions we have to take a look at these things in depth
2:05:51 the other thing that i didn’t hear much about um and this wasn’t
2:05:55 you guys i’m not saying but the
2:05:56 conversation between a public and private partnership ideas
2:06:00 there’s many school districts across the
2:06:02 country that have come up with these innovative places where you
2:06:05 have private business along with
2:06:07 public schools in the same respect um and i haven’t heard any of
2:06:13 those up so i would really love to
2:06:15 take a look at k-8 conversion research six into middle school
2:06:19 conversion research um private and public
2:06:21 partnership ideas okay um i did want to shift real quick into a
2:06:26 conversation one of the miss miss um
2:06:30 miss campbell had mentioned earlier that palm bay’s cte programs
2:06:34 have not grown she’s a hundred percent
2:06:37 right they haven’t um we’ve put every bell and whistle on that
2:06:41 that that school to try to get people to go
2:06:43 there they haven’t but we haven’t provided transportation from
2:06:47 other places to the school
2:06:49 and if we would actually do something like that we might be able
2:06:52 to have students that would go i do
2:06:55 know if you look at osceola say for instance they have one big
2:06:57 tech center right that place is full
2:07:00 kids are going to it they provide transportation to it it works
2:07:03 we’ve just come to the assumption that
2:07:05 we’re going to put a bunch of things there and people are going
2:07:08 to come but they’re not it’s hard for
2:07:10 families to drive kids in high school it’s hard for kids to do
2:07:13 that kind of stuff so when we talk about
2:07:15 flowing of cte programs i love mr thomas’s idea right i think
2:07:20 the other piece that we really need
2:07:22 to do is look at a true bus corridor cost we’re talking on here
2:07:26 about millions of dollars in
2:07:29 construction but what we’re not talking about is it and we end
2:07:32 up in the same position we are we just
2:07:34 reshuffle the deck so we go build k-8s over here we go
2:07:37 elementary school over here we go high school
2:07:39 over here and then it all settles and then we’re all going to
2:07:42 half new schools or whatever it is
2:07:44 that’s great but the other piece is is we’re still going to
2:07:46 those same schools palm bay still doesn’t
2:07:48 have people going to that school because there’s no
2:07:51 transportation we don’t have a true tech corridors
2:07:53 inside of there i wouldn’t doubt it if um and this is and this
2:07:58 is a scenario i am not saying this for
2:08:00 sure i just want to say for instance if you took coco middle
2:08:04 schools or coco high schools middle school
2:08:06 students moved them to um mcnair right and then you took and
2:08:12 made coco a true tech center where you
2:08:15 could use the transportation i promise you kids would leave viera
2:08:19 high school and many of the areas around
2:08:21 here to attend that tech school i do i know my area very well um
2:08:24 when i talk about that bus corridor i
2:08:27 also wanted to talk about i have families right now that don’t
2:08:30 like viera middle school or viera high
2:08:33 school they just don’t right they just don’t um and and it’s
2:08:36 nothing against the schools they do a great
2:08:39 job right my schools are awesome but it’s just different strokes
2:08:41 for different folks a lot of it has to do
2:08:43 with the size so if we were to provide a bus for families out of
2:08:48 the north area or out of viera to
2:08:51 kennedy middle school or delora middle school those buses would
2:08:56 be full going out of our area
2:08:59 so i’m not saying that those are the ideas we do i’m just saying
2:09:02 that part of the community engagement
2:09:04 we should ask parents if you were provided a bus to kennedy or
2:09:08 to delora how many of you would actually
2:09:10 take it um and i think that that works i truly believe that when
2:09:15 i i was the same way as miss
2:09:17 wright like all of a sudden i had my closest friends were
2:09:20 calling me and saying hey why are you closing
2:09:22 our school and i was like whoa what’s going on here like you
2:09:25 know what i mean and just so everybody
2:09:27 understands um 2012 i worked with the families that were
2:09:32 fighting the gardendale and all those moves
2:09:35 and in 2017 and 18 i worked with families to try to rezone my
2:09:41 areas which was favorable to the people
2:09:43 that were inside those zones and we i got voted out against it
2:09:47 so i very much am not the type of
2:09:48 person that just dives in and starts saying let’s go do this i
2:09:51 would really like to do a lot of research
2:09:53 i think miss wright’s comments were 100 there i’d like to take a
2:09:56 look at some of the research and
2:09:58 everything else because the final piece to what i have to say is
2:10:01 we have two big taxes coming up and if
2:10:05 those things don’t get renewed all the plans we have right now
2:10:07 are going to go out the window
2:10:09 and we’re going to have to have an entirely different
2:10:11 conversation and i would hate to have
2:10:13 be halfway through one and then all of a sudden have to shift
2:10:16 gears and come this way i do understand
2:10:18 that we have a fiscal responsibility we absolutely do we do um
2:10:21 but i think that there needs to be more
2:10:23 research before we start moving people groups and everything
2:10:26 else so um that’s my my sense you guys know
2:10:29 i already talked to you guys about some of the zones that i was
2:10:31 taking a look at um you know i think
2:10:34 the other piece that i would really love to do and mr hannah and
2:10:36 i were on the phone today about it
2:10:37 some of our elementary schools could convert to k-8s but then we
2:10:43 were talking about do they have to
2:10:45 have a gym if they don’t that makes a very unique situation for
2:10:48 a lot of opportunities across our county
2:10:51 if you would just be able to take it and convert it how much
2:10:54 does a new gym cost
2:10:55 if you need to if you need to but if you need to sometimes you
2:11:08 may not with the movements of the
2:11:09 new athletic programs they’re able to go to schools right now we
2:11:12 don’t have athletic programs at
2:11:14 different sport and supports at different um schools that are
2:11:17 actually at west shore or edgewood so we
2:11:20 might be able to do that if i can take a look at that that would
2:11:23 be great that’s all i got thank you
2:11:24 all right well it’s one thing we are uh full evidence
2:11:32 information no that’s good someone would argue that
2:11:36 again thanks for everything here guys uh the one thing this is
2:11:42 is a long-term strategic and and it is
2:11:45 long-term um now that’s you know the information out the cats
2:11:50 out of the bag of all the possibilities
2:11:52 out there it’s going to take time and we the nice thing is we
2:11:56 have that time the time is on our side to
2:11:58 go back to uh the community as you can see here we have
2:12:01 questions for staff we have questions for you
2:12:05 and that’s going to take time um which is again it’s on our side
2:12:09 nothing is so pressing that we have to
2:12:11 make something uh an immediate answer um which leads me to what
2:12:16 miss wright was talking about and then
2:12:19 some of the others is you know the uh the rush the confusion
2:12:23 that the community had gotten and i
2:12:25 apologize uh for the community that got such poor information i’m
2:12:29 sorry i didn’t quite get the the great
2:12:32 conversations i i i got some community leaders looked like they
2:12:37 were enjoying uh causing confusion in your
2:12:40 area and i apologize for that because i couldn’t call every
2:12:43 single one of you um please reach out to
2:12:45 a board member uh if it involves your schools so we can set the
2:12:49 story straight um i i’m not going to say
2:12:54 everything was great because i i advised against meeting uh in a
2:12:57 community before this meeting went went ahead
2:12:59 because uh this could have alleviated a lot of the anxiety in a
2:13:03 community so that’s why we’re here
2:13:05 that’s why you elected us uh please reach out in the future you
2:13:08 know you’re all very important your
2:13:10 your opinions are important but when i get a letter or an email
2:13:14 it says please reconsider there’s a lot of
2:13:17 assuming going on there we didn’t do anything yet and um you
2:13:21 know i don’t know how long that had been
2:13:24 going on in the communities before it actually uh got to social
2:13:28 media and we have enough problems in
2:13:31 our in our lives right now to be concerned about things that are
2:13:34 not even happening or potentially may
2:13:36 never happen so i apologize for that there’s a there’s a there’s
2:13:39 a phrase that you guys were used and i’m
2:13:40 not going to use it but please just reach out to any and all of
2:13:44 us uh in the future if anything comes
2:13:46 up with any of your schools or in your communities um that being
2:13:50 said um i mean if dr rendell was here
2:13:52 this would be a question for dr rendell is you know what are the
2:13:55 advantages but so if you went to what
2:13:57 are the advantages for a student and a family uh that goes to a
2:14:01 utilized a fully utilized school what would
2:14:05 you kind of so i think you know some of some of what um miss
2:14:09 campbell was talking about in terms of
2:14:11 programming uh makes perfect sense like you have more
2:14:14 programming more program options and opportunities
2:14:17 and resources when you have more students because your resources
2:14:21 follow the number of students you know
2:14:23 just obviously i’m obviously not on the educational side of the
2:14:26 house so we’re about at the limit of my
2:14:28 knowledge of the answer to that question but um i you know i do
2:14:31 think you know we heard from some of the
2:14:33 students last night that there’s there’s some comfort level with
2:14:37 smaller classes so there you know there’s
2:14:40 that side of it but i think there’s also the ability to provide
2:14:44 more opportunities and broader opportunities
2:14:47 goes with greater number of students correct right and are you
2:14:51 aware that we’ve already had schools to
2:14:54 lose programs because of the under under utilization yes so as
2:14:59 we we say we have all the time in the world but
2:15:02 students are losing opportunity when when we have an underutilized
2:15:06 school so i mean we we have time but
2:15:08 we we need to keep that in mind as we as we go forward um low-hanging
2:15:14 fruit things that cost the least
2:15:17 fiscally responsible uh frugal if you will and that’s looking at
2:15:21 boundaries you know i i’ve heard it up and
2:15:24 down here let’s look at uh you know with this growth that we’ve
2:15:29 had and the grain of our community uh
2:15:32 boundaries may have to be looked at and i think that’s the that’s
2:15:35 the easy thing for us to do and
2:15:37 and the responsible thing to do it and not that would be the the
2:15:42 easiest thing and and we could look back
2:15:45 and say we did what we needed to do and it alleviated the
2:15:49 problem so boundaries would be great great
2:15:51 configuration those are again those are the easy things i mean
2:15:55 we can add programs but if you look
2:15:57 at the capture rate um you know some of those underutilized
2:16:01 schools and the capture rates are
2:16:03 are high so the students just may not be there and we have to
2:16:06 come to that realization if we get to that point
2:16:09 um we can’t create the customer if they’re not there um and that’s
2:16:14 unfortunate if that happens so
2:16:16 but even if we all said the exact same thing up here 5-0 we need
2:16:21 to do something today it’s going to
2:16:23 take an enormous amount of time um and that that’s something
2:16:26 that the community can sit back and
2:16:28 and say nothing’s happening tomorrow um and we are obviously not
2:16:33 on the same page in every avenue because
2:16:35 it’s going to come back with another bump in the road another
2:16:38 fork in the road and it’s going to take
2:16:40 time but we i feel we did what a responsible district would do
2:16:45 responsible company would do a
2:16:48 corporation a huge one would have long strategic plans um when i
2:16:52 was on a church council we were doing
2:16:54 the exact same thing we were bringing in consultants and say
2:16:57 what’s this congregation going to look like
2:16:59 in 10 years 15 years 20 years so we’re doing what we’re supposed
2:17:02 to do and we’re going to involve the public
2:17:04 in every step of the way but keep in mind that board back there
2:17:09 that board behind here that our
2:17:11 responsibility is to serve the student and the education of that
2:17:16 student and the parent of that
2:17:18 student yes i appreciate the thoughts of somebody who graduated
2:17:23 from a school 30 years ago that’s
2:17:26 wonderful but we need to to keep our children’s education in
2:17:30 mind today and moving forward in this board
2:17:33 especially myself you’re only going to get decisions based on
2:17:37 what’s good for those students in that
2:17:39 community okay i’m not looking at votes i’m not looking at what’s
2:17:42 going to look good on in the paper
2:17:44 but if it makes sense for those those students i’m going to be
2:17:48 fighting for that but we have a long way
2:17:51 to go and i appreciate everything you guys have done guys anyone
2:17:54 anything else chair i’m sorry i didn’t
2:17:55 thank you guys for all the hard work i’m sure this is a very
2:17:58 thankless job and it’s criticized heavily and i
2:18:00 and i know that you guys put a lot of effort into this and so i
2:18:02 apologize for not starting there from
2:18:03 a thinking point i was just trying to go through my points of
2:18:06 what i wanted to you know convey to
2:18:07 you guys so i apologize and thank you so much for all the work
2:18:09 you’ve done for our district
2:18:11 i want to say thank you to sue one thing i left off when we do
2:18:14 those boundaries we should also
2:18:16 do it we should call transportation and find out what the impact
2:18:19 and cost is because we might say we
2:18:21 want to move some schools around and find out that we don’t have
2:18:24 enough buses to do it but i did want
2:18:26 to say something for the mcnair families that came and the
2:18:29 individuals that came to support i forgot to
2:18:30 say this um i was very disheartened about what happened to like
2:18:34 we get in the calls but the one
2:18:36 thing that i did want to say is how awesome it was that you guys
2:18:39 cared about your school as much as you
2:18:41 did and that you were willing to go out of the way to fight for
2:18:45 it and that to me was kind of
2:18:47 bittersweet on top of the actual fact that you know we’re
2:18:50 sitting there with miscommunication and
2:18:53 stuff but i was like man they rallied you know and you guys care
2:18:56 about your school and i appreciate
2:18:59 that coming from i wish we had that with some of our other
2:19:01 schools um and a big shout out goes to
2:19:05 you guys for that um i’m proud that we create a school district
2:19:08 that people are willing to fight to
2:19:10 keep their schools um and i want to say thank you for coming i
2:19:13 know a lot of you guys you don’t have
2:19:15 the opportunities you got to leave work and everything else so
2:19:17 thank you i appreciate you guys thank you
2:19:20 i think we all feel that way thank you so much uh that’s all we
2:19:24 have for you guys yes sir i think
2:19:27 just to summarize i think what i’m going to do is we’ll spend a
2:19:30 little time thinking debriefing and
2:19:33 working up a plan of work for us that we’ll get back to you so
2:19:37 you guys all know sort of where we’re
2:19:39 heading and you know seems like there’s quite a bit of research
2:19:42 i’m thinking maybe a pilot project with
2:19:44 you park and stone just kind of working through the steps and
2:19:47 seeing what that starts to look like
2:19:51 some potential boundary changes i i think we’re going to need to
2:19:53 engage the transportation folks and
2:19:56 talk a little bit about some of the transportation ideas impacts
2:19:59 and such the great configuration
2:20:01 research a little bit more in that arena but this is just sort
2:20:04 of off the top of my head reacting to
2:20:06 what you’ve said so i’d like to put it on paper and get a work
2:20:09 plan that you all can look at and
2:20:11 agree that this is where you would like us to go in terms of
2:20:14 next steps miss sue i had one last thing
2:20:16 because i got called by a bunch of parents from edgewood edgewood
2:20:19 is not on this list of anything
2:20:21 just want just want just want it to be known that edgewood is
2:20:25 not part of the conversation of what’s
2:20:26 happening here that’s all i just want to verify yeah it was
2:20:30 there somewhere yeah well yeah i don’t
2:20:32 think anybody here has any idea about that so thank you thank
2:20:35 you okay all right guys i appreciate it
2:20:37 thank you so much for all your effort does any board member have
2:20:40 anything further to discuss mr chair
2:20:42 does anybody mr chair nothing to do with facilities so if you
2:20:46 want to let these guys go i do have one
2:20:48 other item that’s totally up to you yeah sure go ahead just real
2:20:51 quickly um the january workshop i
2:20:55 brought up the idea of the uh doing the invocation before school
2:20:59 school board meetings correct and um i’ve
2:21:03 asked me the board asked mr gibbs to do some research which he’s
2:21:08 done and i would like to hand these out
2:21:11 to you guys just and what i would like to do without belaboring
2:21:20 it is just if you guys read what mr gibbs
2:21:24 provided in his memo along with the other research he had done
2:21:27 with miami dade school district
2:21:31 and osceola county he did some extensive research and i would
2:21:35 just ask that the um that the board
2:21:38 give direction to mr without objection i guess if we’re not
2:21:42 making not voting i’d like to ask mr
2:21:45 gibbs to do a draft a policy for invocations at regular school
2:21:48 board meetings that’s based on the
2:21:50 policy currently in miami-dade and that includes the
2:21:53 recommendations that mr gibbs provided his memo dated
2:21:57 april 4th uh 2025 and have a draft policy ready for the board to
2:22:01 consider on april 22nd on the agenda
2:22:06 so i don’t know if that’s uh how to move it forward in a work
2:22:09 session other than to make sure
2:22:10 if see if we have yeah it’s a good point you brought it up good
2:22:14 job um yeah i read the memo
2:22:16 you know what i mean look look good from my spec you’re going to
2:22:19 bring a rough draft into the
2:22:21 workshop we’ll bang through it and then come up is that what you’re
2:22:24 looking for well this is the
2:22:25 this is a rough draft but basically based on what mr gibbs’s
2:22:29 research it’s pretty much already done
2:22:31 by miami-dade um so this is miami-dades with brevard inserted
2:22:35 into it instead so um just so i can
2:22:38 understand mr thomas you’d like us to look at this um maybe
2:22:41 voice any concerns from now until the
2:22:44 meeting for any kind of changes and then we have a policy
2:22:47 document that comes out at that meeting that
2:22:49 you spoke about that works for me i’m just okay with that try
2:22:53 not to uh you know paralysis through
2:22:55 analysis no i i i get it i get it i just didn’t know if it’ll
2:22:59 just take me some time to move
2:23:01 through it that’s all if you would like to have it at the next
2:23:03 work session instead and no i’m good
2:23:05 i’m good we’ll work through it okay and then paul if like i’m
2:23:09 okay i know miami-dade we have a lot
2:23:12 of their policies are in line with some of the stuff that we’ve
2:23:15 done but if you do have a couple of
2:23:16 people who um have some concerns or something on the back side
2:23:20 maybe maybe then we move to a different
2:23:22 thing but i’m i’m pretty much good i looked at a couple of these
2:23:25 policies across the state
2:23:26 thank you for bringing this forward absolutely
2:23:29 awesome thank you appreciate it all right any board member
2:23:38 having anything else
2:23:39 all right is there no further business this meeting is adjourned
2:23:52 you